I ANNALS OF VIRGIN SAINTS. ANNALS OF VIRGIN SAINTS. BY A PRIEST OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. r LONDON: JOSEPH MASTERS. CAMBRIDGE : J. T. WALTERS. MDCCCXLVI. Tfl IJ\ 7^ 7^ JJI 9^ ijt 7^ 1^ 7^ 7J^ 7^ 7^ #f\ PREFACE. ^HE work which is here presented to the reader, simple as its character, and unpre- tending as its size may appear, has yet been the result of no little thought, and the cause of considerable anxiety. It was proposed to the writer to undertake a series of the lives of ViKGiN Saints, in the hope of interesting in Primitive and Mediaeval Church history, and influencing by Primitive and Mediaeval exam- ple, the minds of some, for whom as a class nothing has as yet been done : those, namely, who from their sex, and their circumstances, would feel a closer interest in the subject of our viii PREFACE. biographies. It was a task of which he partly foresaw the difficulties, and on which he should | not, of his own accord, have ventured; but, invited to undertake it, and anxious to do what he might in the service of our Holy Mother, he was unwilling to decline it. It seemed proper to render it as much an Ecclesiastical History as the character of a biographical series would allow. And for this reason, among the many Virgin Saints of whom it would have been delightful to write, those have not always been selected whose Acts have been in themselves the most interesting. It has rather been endeavoured to leave no cen- tury without its own biography, and to avoid the narration of two lives which should occupy nearly the same portion of Church history, or involve the consideration of the same great event. Thus, for example, S. Marcellina, the holy sister of S. Ambrose, does not form one of our biographies, because the same ground, the early monastick, or rather celibate, life is better occupied in the story of S. PREFACE. ix Eustochium. Thus, on the other hand, the lives of S. Scholastica and of S. Catherine de Ricci are related, rather for the historical im- portance, in the first instance, of the character, in the second, of the time, than for any minute particulars which have descended to us of lives, holy indeed, but uneventful. For a similar reason we have omitted the mention of such Saints as S. Catherine and S. Margaret, of whom, whatever their fame in the Church, no genuine Acts, and no authentick traditions re- main. And one or two lives, as that of S. Teresa, have been omitted, because it was im- possible to add anything to the biographies which have already appeared in English, nor to curtail, without injuring them. In four instances, the lives of those have been related, who could not claim the title of Virgin Saints. S. Radegund introduces us to one of the most delightful of Ecclesiastical Historians, S. Gregory of Tours, and occupies an impor- tant historical position. S. Margaret of CoRTONA was chosen as a rare example of X PREFACE. what could not elsewhere be given, energetick effectual penitence ; S. Isabel, as a pattern of wedded love, and charity to the poor ; and S. Jane Frances de Chantal as coming nearer to our present time and circumstances than perhaps any other of whom we write. In the introductions to the various Lives, we have endeavoured to keep in mind the character of those to whom they are addressed. Thus, observations on musick, on needlework, on the influence conferred by personal beauty, seemed by no means out of place. It is hardly needful to remark that, in all cases, with two or tliree exceptions, these Lives are derived from the original acts or biograpliies. From these they have been care- fully and most faithfully translated ; with an endeavour, however, rather to catch their spirit than to paraphrase their words. For it is certainly truer, — as giving a truer idea of the times, — to describe a real scene by means of an imaginary conversation, (as for example in the Life of S. Potamiaena,) than, by a spiritless PREFACE. xi version of the historian's words, to conceal or lower the historian's meaning. It is impossible, in such a work, to translate literally at all times without so far offending against the refinement of a too refined age, as to render that distaste- ful which in itself is most true and beautiful. If any one doubts this, let him endeavour to translate literally the Acts of the Passion of S. Agatha. In many instances, considerable discrepancy as to dates and other matters of a similar kind will be found to exist between the present lives and Alban Butler's most laborious and useful collection. We have followed, almost implicitly, except where later writers have clearly proved them to be wrong, —the Bollandists. Considering the character of those for whom we were writing, it seemed unnecessary to refer to au- thorities at the bottom of each page ; the table of contents may perhaps suflSciently supply them. Thus, then, we send this little book into the world, with a deep sense of its unwor- xii PREFACE. thiness of the subject, but not without the hope that it may, in some small degree, and among those for whom it is written, effect its end. CONTENTS. [The Authorities, here quoted, refer simply to the Lives, not to the Historical, or occasional, digressions.] S. ?!r^ecla. paok. Credibility of histories not lessened by occasional interpolations, or anachronisms : the First Perse- cution. 1 AutJiority. Tillemont. %. jPlabia Bomitilla. Comparative rarity of Patrician Martyrdoms : the Second Persecution 10 Authority. Tillemont. The Fourth Persecution IG Authority : Her Acts, in the Miscellanies of Baluze. b xiv CONTENTS. Sacramental character of External Nature:— desire of the Church to convert it to her own purposes : her use of Form, Colour, and Musick. The Fifth Persecution 20 The Sixth Persecution 31 Authority : Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Book vi. Chapter 5. %, jl^lartina. Reign of Alexander: S. Bonaventura's Eulogy of a Virgin Martyr. 40 Authority : The Acts of S. Martina, (in their interpolated form,) given by Surius, under January 30. %, '^gatl)a. The Eighth Persecution 48 Authority : The Acts of S. Agatha, as given by Surius, under February 6. IRuffina antJ SccunUa. Contrast of Declining Paganism and the Early Church. The Ninth Persecution. . . .68 Authority : The Acts, as given by Surius, tuider July 10. JFahf). The thirty years* war of the world with the Church of God, under Dioclesian and his succes- sors, in the great Tenth Persecution. . . 66 Authority : The Acts, (as somewhat interpo- lated,) in Surius, under October 6. CONTENTS. XV Authority: Her Acts, in Surius, under January 21, and the commencement of the treatise of S. Ambrose On Virgins, 74 ' SS. ^gape, ©f)lonta, mts Irene. Correspondence between the name and the character of Martyrs. 82 Authority/: The Acts in Ruinart's Acta Sincera, (Ed. 2,) Absence of romance in the genuine Acts of Martyrs 90 Authority : Her Acts in Kuinart's Acta Sincera. lEulalia. 99 Authority : Prudentius, Peri Stephanon, ^J^nn iii., Ruinart, Acta Sincera, Her somewhat uncertain Acts 110 S. pi)crbut!;a. 115 Authority : Ruinart, Acta Sincera. S. 1Eustocl)mm. 120 Authority: Stilting the Bollandist, under September 28, who collects his materials principally from the letters of S. Jerome, and from Palladius. S. ^ulcl^cna. Sketch of the controversies tliat led to the Third and Fourth Oecumenical Councils. . . .138 Authority : Stilting the Bollandist, under September 10. xvi CONTENTS. %%. IBiouBSia, IBatiUn, antr Uutoria. paob. Vandalic persecution. 1^3 Authority : Ruinart's essay on the persecu- tion of the Vandals, appended to his edition of S. Victor's work on the same subject. Change from Primitive to Mediaeval Times. . 161 Authority ; Two lives, by unknown, but apparently contemporary authors, printed by BoLLANDUS, under January 3. ScJ)olastua. Branches and reforms of the Benedictine Order. 171 Authorities'. Historical Commentary of BoLLANDus : S. Gregory's Dialogues, ii. 33, 34 : a MS. life discovered at Bodcck, and printed in Bollandus : and a treatise on the virtues of S. Scholastica, by Jerome Dimgersheym. S>. BaUcguntJ. State of Europe in the sixth century. . .175 Authorities : S. Gregory of Tours on the Glory of Confessors; his Ecclesiastical History of France : the Life of S. Kade- gund by Fortunatus ; and its supplement by the Abbess Bandomina. S. torutJc. 191 Authority : Her Life, by an anonymous, but contemporary author, given by the Bol- landists, under March 17. CONTENTS. xvii Beauty of English scenery as connected with Ecclesiastical buildings. — Sketch of tho family and descendants of S. Anna. . . . .199 Authorities : V. Bede's Ecclesiastical His- tory: the Life of S. Etheldreda, in the History of Ely, by Thomas, a Monk of that House. (!^pportuna. A> glance at the "Dark Ages." . . . 212 Atithority: The Life of S. Opportuna by Adelhelm, given in Suiiius, imder April 22. %%. JFIora antJ jiHarT) iDitl) S. CDolumfia. Persecution of Cordova 227 Authority : S. Eulogius, History of the Moorish Persecution ; and the notes of the Bollandists. S. Ctttiborat. Pantheism contrasted with the teaching of the Church 239 Authority : Two lives, one by Hartmann, the other by IlEnuAN, monks of S. Gall, given by the Bollandists. S. "atJclailJc. A day in an English Benedictine nunnery . ,254 Authority : Her life by Berta, a nun, with the remarks of Bollandus. S. GotJclcba. 280 Authorities: Her life by Drogo, a monk of S. Andrew, near Bruges ; an anonymous life of more doubtful authority ; and the remarks of Sollerius, the Boliandist. b 2 XViii CONTENTS. A morning during Advent-tide in African scenery 287 Authority : The very elaborate dissertation of Stilting, the Bollandist, on her life. %, ©lara. Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Mendicant Orders ........ 292 Authority : The life drawn up officially, pre- vious to her canonisation, as given in SuRius, under August 12. i^argaret of ©ortona. 318 Authority : Her life by her Confessor, and the remarks of the Bollandist s, under February 22. S. ^gncs of J^lonte ^ulcfano. Departiires of S. Louis, S. Thomas Aquinas, S. Bonaventura. 323 S. lEsabel. 332 13. XijUtoina. 339 Authority: Her life by her Confessor, as given in Surius, under April 14. 13. ©oktta. The great Schism 345 Authority: Hor life by her Confessor, as given in Surius, under Marcli 6. %. Ueronlca of Julian. False ideas of romance, iis connected with the poverty of Mcdiseval religious orders . . 35G CONTENTS. Xix The Chiu'ch of the Sixteenth Century . • 364 S. Sane ^Frances Ue Cf)antaL Wars of the League 371 Rise and Progress of the Church m Cocliin China 387 Authority: Noticias Summarias de Cochin China. Lisboa, 1700. INTRODUCTION. I. TT was a good and holy custom in former days, ■■- that the pilgrims of this world should not only have their eyes and hearts continually directed to their happier brethren, already entered into rest, but should be in a yet closer and lovelier manner united to the Communion of Saints. That those Blessed Ones with God, once, like ourselves, hard beset mth temptations of the Ghostly Enemy, and a body of death ; once struggling against fightings without, and fears within ; once falling seven times a day, and yet rising again ; — that they take a deep interest in the trials, and in the sufferings of their militant brethren, that they are permitted to succour and console, and defend us, to defeat the malice xxii INTRODUCTION. of the Powers of Darkness, and to intercede for us before the Throne of God, no CathoUck doubted, no CathoUck doubts. Herein we agree with our ancestors, herein we attain to their faith, that we, too, look on this intercommunion of happy spirits with ourselves as one of the most blessed things yet vouchsafed to this fallen world. From this, it may be, that much of the springs of joy that we cannot explain, — much of that gladness with which a stranger intermeddleth not, have their rise; from this, that the summer twilight, the autumn sunset, and the winter night, speak almost audibly to us of that Immortal Beauty, of which they are the faint, yet sweet figures. We may well believe that in solitary places, where the tumult and wickedness of this world intrude not ; in quiet dells, where the sun pours a golden hue on the topmost leaves of aspen or beech ; in hedge-side lanes, where there is no sound save the chirp of the robin from the over- hanging oak ; by solitary river-sides, where the stream flows gently among rushes and water lilies ; — we may well believe that in lonely seasons, days passed in solitude, and silent nights, good spirits have an influence over us, which, at other times, and in other places, they may not possess. This is one of the reasons why it is sometimes good to be alone : that the mind, set free from the solicitations of business, and the dissipations of frivohty, may be more open for the visitations of the departed Faithful, INTRODUCTION. XXlll and, in a more especial manner, of the Saints of the Most High. All this, I say, we own in common with the Church of other days ; hut we do not, like her, carry out our more general belief into practical consolation. It was by many roads that the Departed in Christ reached their Home; it was in differing trials that they were proved : it was after battles of varymg character that they were crowned. The nearer that the road, the trial, the battle, approaches to our own, the more easily can we sympathise with it, and the greater consolation can we derive from it. The Priest, manfully bearing the burden and heat of the day, will recall with joy the memories of S. Lucian or S. Jerome, Presbyters like himself ; the Deacon will delight in the holy Diaconates and Martyrdoms of S. Laurence and S.Vincent; the Bishop will bear a good witness in the face of worldly statesmen, and expediency-seeking rulers,— speaking of God's tes- timonies even before Kings, and not being ashamed, and will set his face like a rock, remembering the Blessed examples of S. Ambrose and S. Chrysostom. The widow will rather recur to such holy women, as bereft of their earthly husband, have fixed all their thoughts on the Heavenly Bridegroom ; and the good deeds of S. Monica will be written in her heart. The Missionary will rejoice in the recollection of S. Francis Xavier, or S. Boniface of Mayence ; and xxiv TNTRODUTION. stir himself up to imitate them in their holy chivalry. And thus it comes to pass, that this method of contemplating some one Saint in particular, leads to effects far different from those which are produced by our cold, and formal, and lifeless manner of generalizing the Communion that we are privileged to hold with the Blessed. II. And there is another class, — and it is for them that I write, — whom parity of sex, of age, of circum- stance, will cause to direct their thoughts to those Flowers of Purity, Celestial Gems, Brides of the Im- maculate Lamb, the Virgin Saints. And a glorious and beautiful example have they set, for whom the Martyr's rose was entwined with the maiden's lily ; they, who sought and who knew no other love than that of Him Who is Love : they, in whose mouth was piety, in whose thoughts purity, in whose actions charity ; they, who by almsgiving and fasting, by daily rounds of mercy, and nightly watchings unto prayer, have, though " desolate" in the eyes of the world, ''borne many more children" to Holy Church than such as were fettered by marriage ; they, who have obtained that special honour and reward enjoyed by the Hundred and forty and four INTRODUCTION. XXV thousand, who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, and who sing that New Song in which not even the rest of the Blessed Company of Heaven can join. • It may be said, that the case is widely different between our times and theirs. Then there were places of retirement, where a sisterhood could give themselves up to the fervency of monastick devotion ; now, there is no such port for the weary, no such refuge for the distressed. Be it so. What it may please God, in His own good time, to do for our iDhurelv in restoring such retreats. He only knows ; to dwell on the sweetness of a life which is imprac- ticable, on the blessedness of a state which is unat- tainable, were not only useless, but might cause discontent. If He has stripped our Ghurch of much that is fair and venerable. He has yet left His Taber- nacle among us ; but for our sins He might possibly now restore to us the losses which we have suffered. And this we may further say, God works by means ; and, as this is an age in which Satan and his ministers are more than ordinarily exerting themselves, so it is one in which all Christ's servants are bound to be up and doing also. Not all with the same weapons ; not all in the same way. The arms by which man is bound to extend His Kingdom are forbidden to woman ; but she too has means, if she will but im- prove them, of advancing His Glory. Some of those to whom I write will one day be wives and mothers ; c xxvi INTRODUCTION. some will remain in the higher and holier state — for it is a higher and a holier state, — in which they now are. But there will yet be much in common for both classes ; much wherein both may take an example from the Saints of whom we are to tell. III. Influence is one of the greatest, one of the most fearful talents, that can be entrusted to any. The influence which women exert is notoriously great ; how is it that it is too seldom operative of permanent good ? It is the strongest of all ; because it is exerted over those who, and at the times when persons are most susceptible of influence. Look now at that in early life. It may be a little brother or sister ; how incalculable a power over them has an elder sister ! It is in the first four years of a child's existence, that if it be learnt at all before the age of manhood, the most important lesson of all must be taught, — the duties and privileges of bap- tismal innocence. If this were set constantly, and perseveringly, and unwearyingly before young chil- dren, we should have more instances of its blessed preservation. If we taught them to pray, " Preserve Thou my soul, for I am holy," we should not have so much occasion to teach them the more mournful prayer, "I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost ; O seek Thy servant." But who is to teach them INTRODUCTION. XXVU that they are fresh and strong from the Font, that they may do things that we cannot do, that they may obtain victories which we cannot obtain, that every- thing is in their favour, that their work is down hill, that they themselves are, emphatically, holy ; who is to teach them that the difference is incalculable be- tween perseverance in the state in which they are, and return to it after repeated falls : between pre- serving the whiteness of their baptismal robes, and washing them in the bitter tears of repentance ; between a humble trust in God's mercy to a son, and a trembling hope that He may, after all his wanderings, receive the poor penitent? How can a Priest, how can even a father, teach all this, when only it can be learnt ? That is your place. It is not to be done by asserting it once or twice, by bringing it formally forward, by dwelling on it as a lesson, but by constant and watchful seizing of op- portunities, the unnoticed yet active instilling of well-timed remarks, the inference skilfully left to be drawn, the parable allowed to be interpreted ; it is in the nursery and in the parlour, in the game and in the walk, it is by gentleness and persuasiveness, by the mute eloquence of endearment and the sweet language of caress, that this great lesson is to be taught. This you can do ; this none but you can do. Done to the little ones of Christ, done for His sake Whose little ones they are, your pleasant labour shall in nowise lose its reward. Again, take sickness. That you have the power XXVIU INTRODUCTION. of gentleness and tenderness and sympathy far be- yond those of man, none denies. And these things are talents, and most precious talents, and as such, involve a most heavy responsibility. It is true, the highest sources of consolation are not yours to administer. The Power of the Keys, and the Com- munion of the Sick, — these two great sources of comfort beyond that of earth, and of strength above that of mortality, are given to the Priests of God alone. But yet you may do much by suggestions, much by a whispered promise of support, much by reminding the sufferer of past mercies. To him who is tossing in the heat and restlessness of fever, you may call up the images of the hart that panteth after the water-brooks, of the shadow of a Great Rock in a weary land, of the streams that flowed from the stricken rock, of the thirsting of David for the Water of Bethlehem, yea, and of Him Who, that Scripture might be fulfilled, said, " I thirst." To him who is pining away by slow and weary disease, you may speak, as he can bear it, of the Land where the inhabitant shall no more say, I am sick ; of the long night watches that our Blessed Lord passed in prayer for us ; of the weariness that He deigned to know while He went about doing good. To him who is tried by severe pain, how often may you direct his thoughts, by one or two little words, to that adorable Passion, our best support under earthly, our deliverance from eternal. Agony ! So again, in affliction. And these are the offices INTRODUCTION. of true Sisters of Charity. These are works in which the Blessed Saints, whose Hves we write, dehghted ; for which Queens laid aside the Royal attire, Ahbesses the Pastoral Staff, Princesses the pomp and luxury of a Court, and all, self. IV. It may be, indeed, that these opportunities of usefulness, and works of charity are not, at all times, ])ut in the power of all. It would be well, then, if we learnt from one, who, if not taught the more j)crfect way of Catholick Truth, shamed, by his practice, most of those that are; and of whom it may thus well be said, I praised the dead more than the living. Called to attend the death-bed of one under his charge, and thence to the active business of every -day life, he was struck with shame and sorrow for the contrast he felt in the two employments. " If," said he, "our ordinary pursuits were sanctified by the thought that they were done to, and in God, there would not now be the feeling of leaving a holy for an unholy scene." And, in consequence, by additional prayer, he endeavoured to attain that feel- ing of acting in the immediate Presence of God, which should attach itself to every the most trifling action of the Christian. It is, therefore, by the quiet force of example in the family circle that you are more especially called c 2 XXX INTRODUCTION. to do God's work. There are a thousand Httle opportunities, in the course of every day, wherein you may, unnoticed by any, take up the Cross : things so trifling in themselves, that unbehef may sometimes doubt as to the sacrifice being really acceptable to God : self-denials, the more useful, in that they can by no possibility obtain the praise of men. It is by the grace of obedience also, that you may do much. By obedience to earthly parents ; by obedience to your Holy Mother, the Church. It is for her daughters, as well as her sons, that she prescribes fasts and festivals : from the former she expects obedience equal in kind, though not perhaps the same in degree, as from the latter. There are some of those to whom I write, — and God grant that their numl)er may increase tenfold, — who have the privilege of having been educated in the obedience of the Church, as regards this thing. To them, the observation of the Friday, of the Vigils, of Lent, is no new and untried exercise ; is rather an accustomed, and a welcome discipline. There are others, who, are convinced of the duty and necessity of observing such abstinence, that the flesh may be subdued to the spirit, whom the Providence of God has yet thrown among those who are careless about, or opposed to, the system of the Church. This is a situation which requires, in an especial manner, the assistance of the Grace of God : so as, neither, on the one hand, to neglect a known duty, nor, on the INTRODUCTION. xxxi other, to perform it in an ostentatious manner. We all find the difficulty of the task, even where the greatest helps are afforded to us in its performance : how much more where family arrangements run counter, and our conscience is lulled by the thought, " Why have we more need for self-denial than those among whom we are ? Why are the commands of the Church more binding on us than on them ?" If at any time, surely at this, is such self-denial useful, yea, and necessary. It is as S. Jerome com- plained of old, when writing to his friend Gaudentius, on the education of his little daughter Pacatula : Our walls, and ceilings, and columns shine with gold ; and Christ, in the poor man, is naked, and hungry, and dies withoutside of our doors. We read that Aaron the Priest went to meet the raging flames ; and, with lighted censer, stayed the wrath of God. The High Priest stood between the living and the dead ; and the fire dared not to advance beyond the place where he stood. God spake to Moses : — ^Let Me alone, that I may destroy this people.' In that He saith, ^Let Me alone,' He shews that He may^ be restrained from doing that which He hath threat- ened. For the Power of God was fettered by the prayers of His servant. Who is there, think you, now living, who could stand in the way of God's wrath, — meet the flames, — say with the Apostle, ^ I could wish to be anathema for my brethren' ? . . . . In these times has our Pacatula been born ; among INTRODUCTION. such things she passes her earHest years ; she must be acquainted with tears before smiles, sorrow before joy ; she must depart even as soon as she has entered ; such let her always think the world to be." V. And there is, so to speak, a double reason why you, for whom I write, are bound to labour, to your utmost ability, for Holy Church. It is because you are, in a double degree, indebted to her. To woman she has given even more than to man ; — more m a spiritual sense she could not ; more in a temporal sense she could and did bestow. Before that Blessed above women had been privileged to reverse the curse of Eve, so that as death came by a woman, by a Woman also should life come, women were the slaves, not the companions, of men. That it is so in Pagan and Mahometan countries we see to this day : — in the one she is the drudge, in the other the plaything, of her lord. And let us not say that this is caused by general want of refinement, and is the natural consequence of a savage state. The case was the same among the polished Athenians ; and not very different among the Romans. Nay, the chosen people of God fared not much better. The reason lies far deeper. It is the natural wish of man that his name should live after his own decease. It is one proof of the immortality within INTRODUCTION. XXXIU US that we cannot bear oblivion ; that we desire after our departure into the unseen world to leave those that shall regret us, and think of us, and speak well of us. And this will be done by children as only children can do. By them a man may be represented centuries after he has mouldered into dust; inhe- riting his outward form, (for family likeness con- tinues through many generations) they will also inherit much of his disposition ; they will speak as he would have spoken, they vnW counsel as he would have counselled, they will act as he would have acted. The desire of posterity, then, is natural to the human race. Hence it follows that as it is man's to choose, and woman's to be chosen, the latter became, — in a point of universal interest, — dependent on the former. To go down to the grave without children was the height of unliappiness ; in doing so, woman seemed to have Hved in vain. So Jephtha's daughter felt the vow of her father ; so, in Grecian tragedy, child-" lessness is often, by the heroine of the drama, lamented as the chief curse attendant on an early death. Man and woman did not therefore stand on equal terms ; and bitterly was the woe fulfilled. Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." But Holy Church stepped in with a counteracting influence. Marriage she elevated, it is true, to the rank of a leaser Sacrament ; she pronounced it xxxiv INTRODUCTION. honourable in all ; she rendered it, under whatever circumstances, absolutely indissoluble ; she flung grace over its celebration, and pronounced blessing on its contraction. Yet, for all this, she pronounced authoritatively that it was not the highest condition for her children. She led them to desire a more perfect w^ay ; she pointed out to them a place and a name better than of sons and daughters, and she gave honour to that which had hitherto been held in contempt. The last was first, and the first last. And lo ! the condition of her daughters was at once altered. They no longer looked forward to earthly love as their happiest state. They knew that the desolate should bear many more children than the married wife. They were no longer dependent ; a new and a holy freedom was bestowed on them. Man, that could formerly command, had now to sue. And more than this, those who were capable of being elected to so high an honour, as to be the Brides of Christ, henceforth ceased to be the slaves of human passions. They acquired a dignity which they had not before possessed : a dignity of which chivalry and romance were the true and living expressions. And chivalry therefore, was more or less co-extensive with the Church. INTRODUCTION. XXXV VI. It will be fitting that we should listen to the words, before we read of the examples, of the Church. And let us attend to S. Jerome, writing to one, who had already dedicated herself to Christ ; and of whose history we shall hereafter have to tell. "As long as we are detained in this frail body, as long as we have this treasure in earthen vessels^ and the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, there is no certain victory. Our adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour. If the Apostle, a Vessel of Election, and set apart for the Gospel of Christ, kept under his body, and brought it into subjection, on account of the stings of the flesh, and the incentives of vices, lest, after preaching to others, he himself should be a cast-away; and yet for all this, findeth another law in his members, warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him in captivity unto the law of sin : — after nakedness, fastings, hunger, imprison- ments, stripes, punishments, he turns on himself and exclaims, O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? — do you think that you ought to be careless ? Beware, I pray, lest God should say concerning you. The Virgin of Israel hath fallen, and there is none to raise her xxxvi INTRODUCTION. The Bride of Christ is the Ark of the Cove- nant, that was gilded within and without, and held the Law of God. As in that there was nothing hut the tables of the Law, so let it be in thee. Mary chose the good part which should never be taken away from her. Be you, too, a Mary ; prefer learn- ing to tables. Let your sisters run hither and thither, and seek how they may entertain Christ as their guest. Do you cast oif, once and for ever, the weight of worldly cares, and sit at the Lord's feet, and say, I have found Him Whom my soul sought ; I have found Him, and will not let Him go. Are you praying ? You are speaking to your Hea- venly Bridegroom. Are you reading ? He is speak- ing to you .... When you give alms, let God alone see. When you fast, be of a cheerful counte- nance. Let your dress be neither rich, nor untidy : in short, let it be in no respect singular. Do not wish to appear religious, nor more humble than is necessary : lest, pretending to fly, you in reaUty seek for victory Neither affected poverty, nor exquisite ornament, is befitting the Christian. If you are ignorant on any point, if you doubt concern- ing the Scriptures, ask him whom his life commends, whose age may render it not improper, whose repu- tation is without a stain. Or if there is none who can explain it, it is better to be ignorant with safety than to discuss with danger. If you have any maidens who have agreed in the same resolution with INTRODUCTION. XXXVll yourself^ do not behave haughtily towards them, nor be puffed up as being their mistress. Ye have begun to have one Bridegroom, ye sing together, ye together receive the Body of Christ ; why do ■ ye not use the same diet ? Let others be stirred up also to the same course ; let the honour attaching itself to the Virgins of Christ be an invitation to others. If you find any weak in Faith, take her in hand, console, speak kindly to her, and count her good thy gain. " Avarice is to be avoided : not that of seeking what is another's, for that the publick laws forbid ; but that of keeping what is your own, seeing that it is, in fact, others.' We have nothing to do with hoards of gold and silver: our possession is spiritual. 'No man can serve two masters.' Anxieties for support are the thorns that choke faith. The root of avarice is the care for relations. It is when you despise sublunary things, and are united with Christ, that you will sing: — 'The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.' He that hath crucified the flesh, with its affections and lusts, will freely cry out, — 'Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ V Which of the Saints hath been crowned without a conflict ? Examine, and you will find that all endured adversi- ties. Solomon only led a life of luxury: and on that account he was perhaps a cast-away. 'For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.' Is it not better for d xxxvm INTRODUCTION. a short time to fight, to carry the paUsade, to take arms, to he weary under the coat of mail, and afterwards to know the victor's joy, than, from im- patience of enduring the toil of one hour, to be a slave for ever ? Nothing is hard to him that loves ; no labour is difficult to him that desires. Love we Christ, and ever seek we His embraces ; and every hardship will seem easy ; we shall think every long thing short. The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. Unless you use force, you will not take the Kingdom of Heaven. As often as the vain ambition of the world shall have delighted you, as often as you shall have seen some glorious earthly spectacle, pass in your mind into Paradise ; begin to be what you will be ; and strengthened alike in body and mind, you will cry out and say, * Many waters cannot quench love, nor rivers overwhelm it.'" Such was the advice which this Holy Father thought necessary for a young Roman lady. Much of what he says is applicable to the present times : some few expressions there are, which may not so strictly apply. Yet this is to be noticed, — that they to whom S. Jerome wrote in this and similar epistles, though living under a vow, were living at home, were mixing more or less in the world — (and what a sink of wickedness was even then the Roman world, in spite of the illumination which many in it had received !) and were, therefore, more in the situation INTRODUCTION. xxxix of those who may read these pages, than such as in later times assumed the vows in a ReUgious House. It is worth the observing, that the especial virtues which the Church most highly prizes, are just those which shine more beautifully in woman, than even in man. To suffer, as we all know, is for the former ; to do, for the latter : and the Church sets more store on sufferings than on actions. "I will shew him how great things he must suffer for My Name sake " is as true now as ever. Man, in the present state of the world, must act more and bear less ; must oppose and be opposed more ; must be brought into more strife, than a true son of the Church would wish : — woman need not. It is her privilege, as well as her duty, to bear. If you wish to know what is the Church's perfec- tion of the feminine character, if you wish to see it in all its softness, its firmness, its repose, its loveli- ness, go into a quiet country church at twilight, and stand before a female effigy of the thirteenth century. There should be just light enough to reveal the chiselled purity and heavenliness of the eye and mouth, the trustfulness and prayer of the clasped hands, the resignation and self-repose of the whole figure. It is an idea, which it would have been morally impossible for a Grecian sculptor to con- ceive ; and which only the exaltation of woman, by means of the Blessed among women, could have rendered possible. xl INTRODUCTION. And now I am going to lay before you the lives of some of the more illustrious among the glorious band of Virgin Martyrs and Confessors. It is a lovely task ; and yet, even as I begin it, I shrink from it. To write unworthily of them is not only to do them dishonour, but to dishonour Him also Whose Brides they were. To paint ill their Heavenly Beauty, is to speak lightly of Him Who gave them that beauty, yea. Who is Himself Beauty, as well as Truth. He so teach me what to say, He so teach me how to say, that I neither dishonour Him, nor do wrong to the memory of His Saints ! And of you who may read these pages, I would earnestly entreat, that you would, in return for them, raise one prayer for the writer, that, himself undeserving to write of the Pure in Heart, he may yet, through the merits of our Saviour Jesus Christ, find mercy of the Lord in That Day ! TABULAR VIEW OF €f)t Within iWartprsf, WHOSE ACTS FOLLOW. 1. Persecution. NERO. S. Thecla Circa A.D. 66 n. Persecution. DOMITIAN. S. Flavia Domitilla* . . . (Uncertain) III. Persecution. TRAJAN. No Virgin Martyr whose authentick Acts remain. IV. Persecution. HADRIAN. S. Seraphia 121 * S. Flavia Domitilla undoubtedly confessed in the Second Persecu- tion ; but, if she suffered Martyrdom, it was in the third. xlii TABULAR VIEW OF VIRGIN MARTYRS. V. (or Sequel to the IV.) Persecution. MARCUS AURELIUS. S. Cecilia* 176 VI. (or V.) Persecution. SEVERUS. S. POTAMI^NAf 210 VII. (or VI.) Persecution. MAXJMUS. No Virgin Martyr, whose Acts remain to us, suffered under Maximus ; but under Alexander, probably S. Martina 225 VIII. (or VII.) Persecution. DECIUS. S. Agatha 251 IX. (or VI Q.) Persecution. VALERIAN. SS. RUFFINA AND SeCUNDA .... 257 Sequel of the X. (or IX.) Persecution. AURELIAN. No Virgin Martyr whose Acts remain to us. * Some writers place the Martyrdom of S. Cecilia as late as a.d. 230* t Some writers make S. Potamiaena to have suffered in a.d. 207. TABULAR VIEW OF VIRGIN MARTYRS. xliii X. Persecution. DIOCLESIAN AND HIS SUCCESSOES. S. Faith About 290 S.. Agnes, Jan. 21 SS. Agape, Chionia, and Irene, April 1 and 5 S. Theodora, April 5 . . . . V304 S. EuLALiA, Dec. 10 . . . . S. Lucy, Dec. 11 First Persian Persecution. SAPOR. S. Pherbutha 345 Persecution of JULIAN the Apostate. S. Bibiana and her Companions .... 363 Vandalic Persecution. HUNERIC. SS. DiONYSiA, Dativa, and their Companions 484 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. VIRGIN AND PROTOMARTYR, IN THE FIRST PERSECUTION. ABOUT A.D. 68. TT is a mark of the age in which we hve, that it refuses to beheve in the truth of any historical account, unless time, place, persons, and circumstances are explicitly and accurately stated. The slightest anachronism, real or imagined, which in the course of years may have insinuated itself into an ancient story, throws it into disrepute, and exposes its believers to the cliarge of credulity. Hence popular traditions, which almost always con- tain much that is true, and are hardly ever free from something that is false, are disregarded and de- spised : — hence ecclesiastical legends, more especi- ally when they involve the miraculous, are laid aside B 2 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. with a smile of pity and contempt. It was not so in bygone days. Our fathers were content to derive edification from the sum of a tale, sundry details of which were perhaps falsified or corrupted : they did not reject the whole because of its parts, but they gave honour to the parts because of the whole. The world has long since declared which is the wiser habit of thought : — true wisdom, more especially true historic wisdom, is now-a-days made to consist in doubting every thing. An Apostle has taught us otherwise : love, — and what is true love but true wisdom? — if shebeareth all things, believeth all things also. And these remarks are not unsuitable, when we are about to write of her who is the first to come forward in the lovely chorus of the Virgin Saints. It is the constant tradition of the Church, that, in the middle of the first age, Asia was honoured by the sanctity and the good confession of the Holy Virgin, Thecla. But for detailed particulars of her life and sufferings we look in vain. It is recorded, that towards the end of the same century, a certain priest of Ephesus forged a volume, which he entitled ^^The Travels of S. Paul and S. Thecla;" and that, having been convicted on his own confession, he was by S. John the Evangelist deposed from the priesthood. In the fifth age, Basil of Seleucia, a bishop of some note in Church history, wrote the life of the same saint ; but his work bears evident S. THECLA. 3 marks of having been derived from fabulous sources, and in particular from the condemned acts of the Ephesian priest. The learned ecclesiastical historian, Tillemont, has, with great industry, amassed the scattered passages in which various Fathers have spoken of S. Thecla, and woven them into one continuous account. He has laboured reverently and usefully, and we may with thankful hearts enter into his labours. S. Thecla was born in Isauria ; and, it would seem, not long subsequently to the Ascension of our Blessed Lord. Brought up in all the luxuries that rank and wealth could bestow, — unable to form a wish that was not gratified, — taught to look forward to the full delights of rank, and riches, and love, — what wonder that she should adopt the Epicurean philosophy of her age and country, and say in her heart, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die ? The strictness of seclusion and education, which in earlier ages had been the lot of both Grecian and Roman maidens, was in the corrupt days of the Csesars, much relaxed. But even then, when she knew Him not, God kept His servant from falling into open and scandalous sin. Far from Him, no doubt, she was ; but yet virtuous, so far as heathen virtue went. And her mind was stored with the polite literature of the time : not only with poetry and history, but with the abstruser studies of phi- 4 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. losophy. She had heard, from Plato, of the immor- tahty of the soul ; she had said, with Cicero, If it be an error so to believe, the gods grant that I may die in that error and, in process of time, she was to learn a truer and a deeper philosophy than that of the Academy or the Porch. One so richly endowed with fortune, and wisdom, and beauty, could not want suitors to contend for her smiles. And with the full approbation of her parents, she was ere long engaged to a young nobleman of the country, not more distinguished for his riches than for his generous and liberal spirit. The accustomed sacrifices had been offered, — the wonted presents received, — and now nothing was thought of save the preparations for the bridal, and the bridal joy. Iconium was full of the news, and a hundred voices were ready to join in the ancient wedding wish, " From home to home !" While these things were in preparation, the city was thrown into excitement by the preaching of two Jewish strangers. The sect of the Jews was well known, and everywhere spoken against ; but it sought not to make proselytes, and was content with the liberty of using its own rites in secret. The case was far different with these teachers. It was said that they affirmed doctrines of the most won- derful kind : — that they spoke of One Who had been crucified in Judaea some years before, as their Lord, and their God ; that they asserted the re- S. THECLA. 5 surrection of the body frcm the grave ; and taught of a life to come, where every man would receive according to the works which he had done in this. It was further reported, that they had at •Lystra restored to health a certain man impotent in his feet, a cripple from his mother's womb, who had never walked ; that the multitude had been witnesses to the wonder, and had cried out in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men ; that rumour held them to be, respectively, Jupiter and Mercurius ; that the priest of Jupiter would have done sacrifice to them, had they not, in the strongest manner, en- treated him to forbear, insisting that gods made with hands were no gods at all; — and finally, that they were preaching the same doctrines, and per- forming the like miracles in Iconium. Thecla was eager to hear for herself ; and her de- sire overcame her fears and her pride. She inquired for the Jewish synagogue ; and, in the lowest and most miserable part of the city, she was to be found in search of it. The strangers, she was told, were in the habit of preaching there every seventh day ; and on the Sabbath, accordingly, she was among their listeners. From one who stood by she learned that the names of the teachers of these new doc- trines were Paul and Barnabas ; — and that Paul's energy was the more remarkable, he having in times past persecuted the faith that he now preached. At B 2 6 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. last he spoke. Then Thecla heard of righteousness, temperance, and the judgment to come ; — of man's sin, and God's mercy; — of the worm that never dieth, and the fire that is never quenched, and of the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away ; — of the law of conscience inscribed in their hearts who had no written law of action ; of the punishment that is justly due when this law is violated ; — she heard also of the one Baptism for the remission of sins, of the Resurrection of the body, and the life of the world to come. And the voice of God in her heart told her that this was true. She sought him in private whom she had heard in public ; and from his hands, after due instruction, she received the illumination of Holy Baptism. That the Apostle, when consulted by her as to the future course of her life, counselled her to break off her engagement, and to dedicate herself wholly to God, is related with the strongest possible evidence. For Faustus, the Manichaean, pledged by his accursed heresy to maintain that marriage, instead of being an honourable and a holy estate, was the invention of the devil, brought for- ward the universal tradition of the Church as proof of this action of S. Paul, and based an argument on the Apostle's advice; — and S. Augustine, in his reply, does not deny the tradition nor question its authenticity, but explain^ the fact. But this is one of the instances,— and there are many such in S. THECLA* 7 ecclesiastical^ as well as in scriptural, histoiy, — where we are not to imitate tlie laudable actions of a saint. That S. Thecla, in obeying S. Paul, obeyed the will of God, none can doubt ; as little can we doubt that a similar course under ordinary circumstances would be displeasing in His eyes. And S. Paul himself, writing to the Corinthians, expressly teaches, Art thou bound to a wife ? seek not to be loosed," which words apply as strongly in this respect to an engagement as to marriage itself. The teaching of Christianity was as yet unknown among the Pagans, and the honour attached to a single life was as yet unheard of among them. For the Jews (with whom they long confounded the Christian Church) regarded celibacy as a reproach and a curse ; and therein they agreed with all the polished nations of antiquity. The resolution, therefore, of S. Thecla to break off her engagement was totally unintelligible to her parents ; and, treat- ing it as an idle whim, they used all their endeavours to subvert it. But the Holy Virgin was proof against the threats of her father, the lamentations of her mother, the endearments of her lover, and the tears, says S. Chrysostom, of her servants, by whom she was greatly beloved ; and the admonitions of the magistrates before whom the case was laid, were as ineffectually urged, and as constantly rejected. No long time after, Thecla left her father's house, giving up all tbe comforts and the hopes of this s LIVES OP VIRGIN SAINTS. world, for the purpose of avoiding the sohcitations of her family, and accompanying and ministering to S. Paul. Doubtless, here also she was acting by the special direction of Providence, or the Apostle would have discouraged such a sacrifice, and refused such attendance. The nobleman to whom the Chris- tian maiden had been promised, now felt his love converted into hatred. He assembled his slaves and dependants, pursued and overtook her ; and, on various false accusations, induced the magistrate to imprison her. And by him, after the short mockery of a trial, she was condemned to be exposed to the beasts. For now, it should seem, though the point is not certain, Nero had stretched forth his hand to vex the Church. In that first persecution many glorious martyrs put off mortality. At Rome, SS. Peter and Paul, on the twenty-ninth day of June, a. d. 66, received that crown which the Lord hath pro- mised unto them that love Him ; at Milan, God was glorified in the Confession of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, the same who, in after ages, by the virtue of their relicks, gloriously confounded the Arians ; at Alexandria, S. Mark bore witness with his blood to the Gospel that he had preached ; and at Ravenna, S. Apollinarius, Bishop of that see, at- tained the honour of Confession, though his earnest desires for Martyrdom were not accompUshed. Amidst such a noble band of fellow-sufferers, one S. THECLA. 9 with herself in heart, and faith, and love, and well- nigh in time, S. Thecla was called to the conflict : she stood in the midst of the amphitheatre, — a de- fenceless maiden exposed to the fury of lions. But these wild beasts, far from attacking her, walked up to the servant of Christ, and laying themselves down at her feet, licked them in token of submission. The keepers in vain endeavoured to enrage and ex- cite them ; — towards the Confessor of the Truth their fury was turned into gentleness. And exposed then, or at another time, to the flames, she was invulnerable by them. Released at length from the rage of her perse- cutors, she again followed the Apostle on his journeys ; and, as S. Gregory of Nyssa says, took in hand the sacrifice of herself, by keeping under her body and bringing it into subjection, crucifying the flesh with its affections and lusts, and becoming dead to the world, as the world was to her. And so finally, in her native Lycaonia, she fell asleep in the Lord. Though she departed by a natural death, the Church accepting, like her Master, the will for the deed, honours her with the glorious title of the Virgin Protomartyr. *w* 'W' "w* '^jy* '^jy* '\Qe'^ "W* VIRGIN AND MARTYR : CONFESSOR IN THE SECOND PERSECUTION. ABOUT A.D. 96. T TOW " hardly shall they that have riches enter mto the kmgdom of God!" So spake our Blessed Lord and Master ; and the whole history of the Church proves the ample truth of His words. But lest He should seem to close the door of Heaven against all but the poor, He was pleased to proceed, — With men this is impossible, but not with God ; for with God all things are possible." And He has, therefore, from time to time, raised up illus- trious witnesses to this His own Almightiness ; — He has made choice of some that were conspicuous for worldly rank, to attain the dignity of citizens of Heaven. " All the saints salute you," says S. Paul, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household." And again, in one short verse, what various characters does he include ! Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia." Eubulus, of S. FLAVIA DOMITILLA. 11 whom we know nothing further ; Linus, the first successor of S. Peter ; Pudens, a Roman senator of wealth and rank ; and Claudia, his wife, who was, in all probability, a British lady. • The first persecution had passed ; and the Church had come forth purified. " Surely there is a vein for silver, and a place for gold where, they fine it.'* And since that time, the abomination of desolation had stood where it ought not, and Jerusalem was trodden under foot of the Gentiles; — and by the accompHshment of prophecy, the faith of the Church was confirmed. Domitian mounted the throne of the Caesars, and sought, like Nero, to blot out the name of Christianity. But yet, it would seem, he persecuted rather for the indulgence of his own natural caprice and cruelty, than with the settled purpose of crushing the new sect. Now it was that S. Antipas, whose praise is in the Apocalypse, became God's faithful Martyr at Pergamus ; that S. Dionysius the Areopagite finished his course at Athens ; that S. Timothy resisted unto blood at Ephesus ; and that S. John confessed before the Latin Gate, when the boiling oil had no power to hurt him whom Jesus had loved. There dwelt in Rome, during the time of this persecution, a man of high rank, named Flavins Clemens. He was nephew to the deceased Emperor Vespasian, and consequently cousin to Domitian ; and he was doubly connected with that prince, 12 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. having married his niece, Flavia Domitilla. By her he had two sons, whom Domitian destined to be his successors ; — and, changing their original names, on one of them he bestowed his own, — on the other that of his father Vespasian. Their education was en- trusted to the famous grammarian and most excel- lent orator, Quintilian ; and they were brought up with all the care and attention that their high prospects seemed to demand. But Flavins Clemens, meanwhile, had heard of the truth of Christ, and had embraced it with all his heart. It may be that he had first been led to study it from some of those who were of his own rank : for more than thirty years before, the bonds of S. Paul were manifest in all the palace, as well as in all other places. And his new manner of life exposed him to the charge of slothfulness. Suetonius, the Latin bio- grapher and historian, assures us that he incurred open contempt by his idle life. His want of ambi- bition, probably, and the little store that he set by worldly honours, led those to entertain this opinion, who could imagine no other motive for the conduct of Clemens. He was, however, raised to the Con- sulate in the year 95 ; and hardly had he laid down his dignity, when, by the Emperor's command, he was ordered to prepare for death. The accusation which ended his life, was, says Suetonius, of a very trifling character : and it may well be, that it was only a pretext to punish him for his suspected, if not S. FLAVIA DOMITILLA. 13 openly professed, Christianity. And this is ren- dered the more probable, because Dio, in mentioning his death, attributes it to his atheism, — the well- known reproach levelled against the Christians of those ages. His execution must, to use a modern phrase, have caused a great sensation in the city ; for he was the first Martyr of illustrious birth. It is somewhat surprising that we have no detailed acts, or, at least, well authenticated traditions of him : but the destruction of so many ecclesiastical records under Dioclesian, may account for the loss of the first ; and the superior fame of Pope S. Clement, " whose name is in the Book of Life," has perhaps attracted to itself some of the legends which were really handed down of the Martyr-Consul. And we can thus explain a tradition which asserts the Bishop of Rome to have been of the Emperor's kin. Flavia Domitilla was involved in the same accusa- tion with her husband ; but, unlike him, was per- mitted to live. Three or four days, however, after his death, she was commanded by the Emperor to give her hand to another ; and, on her refusal, was banished to the Island of Pandataria, in the Gulf of Puzzoli. But this was not the Flavia Domitilla to whom we now more particularly refer. She was a niece of the Consul Clemens ; and at the time of his death was banished to the Island Pontia. S. Jerome calls her the most illustrious of women, and says that 14 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the island was made famous by her imprisonment. At the end of the fourth century, the cells where she had dwelt were still shewn, and still the object of veneration. How long she was confined in that little island is uncertain ; but, if we believe S. Jerome, it was for a long time. Domitian, indeed, did not survive her banishment many months, and the death of Flavins Clemens hastened his own. For Stephen, the steward of Domitilla, having, un- happily, not received her faith, and anxious to avenge the murder of his late master, cut off the tyrant in the midst of his cruelties. It is true that Nerva, who succeeded, recalled those who had been unjustly banished by his pre- decessor ; but he may have had his reasons for making an exception in the case of the relations of Domitian. It would appear, therefore, that Flavia, in company with her chamberlains, S. Nereus and S. Achilles, made the place of her imprisonment the portal and the antepast of heaven. It is certain that these good servants were crowned with Martyrdom ; and it would appear, though their acts are not authentic, at Terracina. But whether S. Flavia was honoured in like manner is not certain. If she suffered, it must have been in the persecution of Trajan ; but the title of Martyr may have been applied to her, as it was to so many in the first and second ages, only as a valiant Confessor of Christ. Her body was long believed to repose in the S. FLAVIA DOMITILLA. 15 Church of S. Adrian, at Rome. But in the year 1597, Baronius, the eelehrated ecclesiastical histo- rian, who was Cardinal Priest of the title of SS. Nereus and Achilles, removed part of her remains into that church, and her feast is celebrated on the seventh day of May. VIRGIN AND MARTYR IN THE FOURTH PERSECUTION. A.D. 121. T7 CCLESIASTICAL historians are not agreed on the subject of Hadrian's persecution ; whether to make it a mere sequel to that of Trajan, or to reckon it as the fourth among the ten attacks which Pagan rulers made upon the Church. Its Martyrs were less numerous and less illustrious than those of other persecutions. S. Sixtus, Bishop of Rome, was the most celebrated among them. But it raged throughout the whole of the Roman empire, and more especially was its violence felt in Italy. Will my readers be wearied, — in this the first part of my Annals, — by what may seem the sameness of succeeding histories ? Is it tedious to hear of the same tortures, of the same temptations, of the same constancy, of the same struggle, of the same tri- umph? What else can be expected? What else is going on every day among ourselves? There 1 S. SERAPHIA. 17 hath no temptation taken us^ but such as is common to all men. There is no new way of getting to Heaven. If we believe this^ we may well be willing to hear how bravely others have gone forward in the old paths ; how safely, after patient endurance, they entered into the heavenly Canaan. Seraphia, of whom we write, was born at Antioch ; but had, from whatever reason, become a sojourner and a slave in Italy. She was purchased by Sabina, wife of Valentine, a man, it would seem^ in a re- pectable situation, — and the daughter of Herod, a goldsmith ; who, under Vespasian, had thrice con- fessed the truth in Rome. Notwithstanding her father's sufferings, Sabina was a Pagan ; but, on receiving Seraphia under her roof, she thereby re- ceived an angel unawares. For the eastern maiden had learned the folly of idol worship ; and, under the blessing of God, led the Italian matron to the knowledge of the true faith. The different mode of life practised, and the different principles professed, in this Christian house, seem to have attracted the attention of the little neighbourhood of the borough, where they lived ; — and Verillus, a magistrate re- sident there, sent to command their attendance at his tribunal. Sabina, who would appear to have been, by this time, a widow, had thoughts of assem- bling her numerous household, and resisting the execution of the mandate ; but Seraphia said, My mother, let me go. Only believe and be earnest in c 2 18 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. prayer to our Lord. For I believe, that, though I am unworthy and a sinner, the Lord Jesus Christ will make me His worthy handmaid." " My daughter," replied Sabina, " I am determined to live or die with you ; and you shall not, therefore, leave me." The hasterna was ordered, and in it the two friends went forth to their trial. The magistrate, on hearing of their approach, went forth to meet them in the portico. After paying the usual compliments, he expostulated in a friendly manner with Sabina : How can you allow yourself," said he, to be persuaded by one who is evidently crazed? How can you disgrace the memory of your husband, Jind your own rank, and incur the anger of the gods, by the adoption of this new religion ? Return to your house, — forget your folly, — and dismiss this enchantress." But the matron paid no attention to his words, and for that time the two Christians were permitted to retire from the tribunal. On the third day, Seraphia was summoned alone ; but her mistress accompanied her as before. The usual demands were made by the Prsefect, the usual answers returned by the Confessor, and the Acts thus proceed : — Verillus. If, then, you refuse to sacrifice to our gods, draw near, and sacrifice to Christ. Seraphia. I do so daily ; I adore and I call upon Him by day and by night. S. SERAPHIA. 19 Yerillus. And where is the temple of your Christ, cr what sacrifice do you offer to Him ? Seraphia. The exhibition of myself pure by a chaste conversation, and the bringing of others, by His mercy, to the same profession. Verillus. Is this the temple of God, and the sacrifice acceptable to your Christ? Seraphia. There is nothing more acceptable to Him than to acknowledge the true God, and to live purely in His service. Verillus. Then you, according to your own account, are the temple of God ? Seraphia, While by His assistance I remain pure, I am His temple. For thus saith Holy Scrip- ture : "Ye are the temple of the living God, and the Holy Ghost dwelleth in you." Henceforth it is the same tale that we shall have occasion so often to repeat : how the Martyr was exposed to the insults of Roman youths, — how they could do no harm to her with whom the Lord was, — how they were struck with dumbness, — how, at the request of the judges, Seraphia restored them to the use of their speech, — and how, finally, she was beaten to death with clubs, remaining firm to the end. Sabina was, for the time, left unmolested ; but in the course of the succeeding year was arrested and beheaded ; and thus these two Martyrs of Christ, widely separated in circumstances and rank in this life, reign together with Him in that which is to come, for ever and ever. VIRGIN AND MARTYR IN THE FIFTH PERSECUTION. ABOUT A.D. 176. [?230.] TT has ever been the end and aim of Holy Church to symboHse the Heavenly by the Earthly : to use the beauty and majesty of this world, in leading on her children to the yet unseen glory of the many mansions prepared for them in the next. She has pressed into her service the precious things of land and sea ; she has hallowed that which had otherwise been abused to worldly pomp; "she has dared to 'inherit the earth.'" She leaves not the snowdrop, in its spotless love- liness, to return with a smile from its laurel hedge shelter the faint caresses of a February sun : it must deck the High Altar of the gray Chancel, when we commemorate her Purification, who was herself pure beyond the daughters of Eve. She will not allow the budding softness of the palm to give life S. CECILIA. 21 and joy to the April hedge ; it must be for the solemn procession of those^ who go forth with the Gloria, laus, et honor, to celebrate the last entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem. The lily may not hide itself in the modest garden bed ; we need it when we hold High Festival on S. Margaret's Day ; it is the flower of virgins, the symbol of the pure in heart. The rose, that at morning peeped from the rustic trellice, ere noon helps to deck the choir, wherein the deeds of the Prince of Apostles are chanted by the full band of priests. So with gold and silver, and the gems of the mine: they blaze in the Chalice and the Paten, they are cariously wrought in the mitre and the clasped cope ; they ghtter in the pastoral staff and processional Cross. So with the work of the needle : the hanging, the frontal, the corporal, and the veil, all exercise the patient skill of the artist, all occupy the quiet hours of the convent. The deep forest gladly gives up its treasures ; the oak, that might have battled with the waves, or carried some royal armament to conquest and worldly glory, re- ceives a more peaceful and more happy lot in the high roof of the minster. The cedar and the pine, the chesnut and the beech, the beauty of Lebanon and the pride of Carmel, all come up to the sanctuary, and make glorious the resting place of the Lord's Feet. The mountain delights to yield block after block for the rising wall ; the spice- 22 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. tree its sweetness for the lighted censer ; the silk- worm its labours to deck the altar ; for that the ele- phant gives up his ivory spoils ; for that the bee toils all day long in the recesses of summer flowers, well deserving thereby the care bestowed on it by the inhabitants of the Western Ocean's loveliest island, who will not destroy the insect that labours for Holy Church. Thus, then, the spoils of nature come to her; thus her children gladly offer for her service the best and the brightest of God's gifts. Why ? but in some faint degree to set forth that land which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard ; to allure the wan- derer from the riches of earth, by means of those very riches; to impress on ^ the enemy's gold the stamp of the King of kings. Faint, indeed, are these efforts ; in spite of them all it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive the good things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Faint indeed they may be, and yet useful. Some of the wise and the holy sons of the Church have called out the principle still further, and have made a covenant with their eyes, that in beholding the pleasant things of creation each should be, as it were, to them a Sacrament of the New Heavens and the New Earth. For a sacramental life is the proper life of a Catholick : he delights in multiplying to hiinself these holy signs, knowing that, of a surety. S. CECILIA, 23 the antitype will exceed the type, as much as a suhstance does its shadow. It may he, indeed, in- comprehensible to us, as we gaze on some mountain prospect, where the glorious form is heightened by the majestic light and shade, how there can be a world which will render such scenes unworthy of a thought ; or how, such an one existing, our soul, already filled to the full with the influx of beauty, could endure more. And yet what earthly riyer but becomes more beautiful, when it typifies to us the River of the water of life, clear as crystal 1 What jutting peak, when it calls to the mind the True Rock ? What mountain range, when it pictures to the eye of faith the utmost bound of the everlasting hills ? The traveller, as he gazes on these things, thanks God for such earnests of heavenly beauty ; they are lighted for him with a ray far exceeding that of the noonday sun, though the man of the world has no share in his delight : a ray from that eternal glory, which gives splendour to the abodes of the Blessed. Nor is it to the eye alone that these emblems speak ; they appeal, as powerfully and as sweetly, to the ear. Nay, and perhaps more powerfully, because more really ; because there is not only a likeness, but a sameness, in the thing signifying and the thing sig- nified. All that we hear of the harpers harping with their harps, of the new song, of the voices, like the sound of many waters, seems to bring Heaven, in this I 24 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. respect, nearer earth, than in any other. For, as a poet of our own has not ill said. All that we know they do above, Is that they sing and that they love." And doubtless, music has always been privileged by God to have a power over the soul that no other material influence ever claimed ; whether, as in the case of Saul, by expelling unclean spirits from the breast, or by inviting, as in that of Elisha, more blessed tenants to be its inhabitants. Therefore I know not whether, to those for whom I write, it ought to be a sweeter or a more solemn thought, that there is so wide a difference between the study of music, and that of all the other femi- nine arts and accomplishments in which they are en- gaged. The needle and the pencil may indeed be devoted to the service of the earthly church : by the one may the shrine be adorned, or the poor of Christ clothed : by the other may the buildings of more Ca- tholic ages be held out for the imitation or reverence of our own. But these things, which are of the earth, earthly, cannot be carried beyond the grave. It is not so with music. In learning that, you are learning an art which will endure as long as love, and that is for ever. That study which is everlasting is surely to be treated with all awe. Debased it may be, and prostituted to earthly passions, and social frivolity ; it was not made for such things. Its foun- S. CECILIA. 25 tain is still pure ; it is where Cherubim and Sera- phim are ; it is one of the delights of Heayen, it is one of the sciences of the ^ Well-adventured.' To its fountain it of necessity must tend : it is a* miserable force which enchains it to earth : this is not its home^ this can never be its rest. We may link it, in unholy marriage, to secular or sensual ideas : but God made it for Himself, and that which He hath joined together, let no man put asunder. I will not now speak of those recondite mysteries which wise men have found, or have imagined they found, in the dispositions of notes, in the components of tones, in the harmonies of chords. That such things should be, is more than likely : that a branch of heavenly beauty cannot be without heavenly truth, is certain : but the consent of all ages teaches us how, practically, as faith is that which binds the spirit of man, so is music that which links his soul, to the imseen world. And perhaps the heavenly strains, which are the voice of the Church Triumphant, may not differ so widely in kind, however much in degree, from those of the Church Militant. Celestial may be but the transfi- guration and glorification of terrestrial, music. From the former, the latter may have acquired more than we know. It is certain that the antiphonal system of 3hanting was of no earthly devising: S. Ignatius had t immediately by inspiration. Palestrina constantly ifiirmed, that his compositions were only his memo- D 26 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. ries of that which, during sleep, he heard the angels sing. It may well be, also, that on those whom He has raised up to shew what music is, He bestowed only a portion of that harmony which is the endow- ment of His glorified servants ; even as the four Living Creatures in Ezekiel each contain the four attributes which are apportioned, one by one, to those of the Apocalyptick Vision. It may well be, that there the golden sweetness of Handel, the dark sublimity of Beethoven, the passionate pathos of Mozart, the rich variety of Haydn, may co-exist with the Catholick majesty of Palestrina. Is it to debase our ideas of that Blessed World, the comparing it thus with this ? I trow not. Ra- ther it is to exalt our appreciation of that in which we dwell, and with which we are engaged. Our Blessed Lord, Who knew what was in man, ever by the seen led him on to the unseen ; not judging that the former would detract from the latter ; rather that this would ennoble that. And there is yet another reason why in Musick it may be supposed that we make a nearer approach to the joys of Heaven than in any other art ; namely, that in it we rise higher above the natural charms of the w^orld in which we live. In form and colour w^e sink far below that which we see around us : in both, daily and hourly, we see effects inimitable by the pencil of man. But in music it is not so. Infinitely varied, it is true, is the melody of this S. CECILIA. 27- earth. The trees, talking with the wind, have each a separate sound : there is, as has heen well said, the dash of the oak, the rustle of the aspen, the roar of the fir grove, the whisper of the cypress, the dull roll of the beech. The lazy ripple of the sea on a sunny beach, the laugh of the streamlet, running, like a child, down the mountain side, the whistle of the long grass to the wind, the howl of the tempest round shapeless rock, or withered trunk, these are each, in their turn, sweet to hear. And morning and evening, whether man speak or be silent, the choir of birds chant matins and vespers to their Creator. Thus we have melody, which is the form, but we lack har- mony, which is the colour, of music. This it was left to man to discover and call into being, thus elevated far above the natural music of the earth, and made a little lower than the angels. And we may well imagine that Holy Church, when she seized the treasures of Form and Colour, would not leave those of Sound untouched. She taught that most lovely of instruments, the human voice, to utter melodiously her Lord's praises : she bade wind and stringed instruments to bear their part with him ; she invented the majestic organ, that should^ like an ocean of harmony, pour out its billows of sound, dashing on roof and window, shattering itself on pier and clerestory, roUing along the pavement, and shaking, like an earthquake, the great cathedral. 28 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. She hung, half-way between earth and heaven, her musical bells ; she taught how to welcome in the fes- tival by modulated chime ; how to ask a prayer for her departing child ; how to ring out a peal of victory as his corpse, convoyed with cross and banners, en- tered the resting-place of Christian soldiers ; how to ward off thunder and lightning and the spirits of the air ; how to rejoice over the Bridal, how to solemnize the Baptism ; how, in the sweet Angelus, to call the thoughts of lord and peasant, of labourer and mer- chant, for a few short moments from the cares of this world to the repose of the next ; how, finally, by a silence more eloquent than musick, to hallow the solemn hours that our Lord was in the earth. These thoughts are not unmeet when we would commemorate her whom Holy Church honours as the patron of Sacred Musick. For of her life and passion we know but little ; the Acts of her Martyrdom being supposititious. Nor is it certain in what year she glorified God. Some will have it, that she received the Crown of Martyrdom under Alexander Severus : it is true that this prince was favourably disposed to the Christians, but local persecutions were numerous. Others suppose her to have suffered in the persecu- tions of Marcus Aurelius, (variously reckoned as the fourth or fifth) and between the years 176 and 180. The most illustrious martyr who during its course put on immortality was S. Poly carp : the martyrs of S. CECILIA. 29 Lyons, also, are the perpetual glory of the Church of France. She was of a nohle Roman family, and her parents .were Christians. She early consecrated herself to God ; and, though they compelled her to marry Valerian, a young patrician, she not only brought him to the knowledge of the True Faith, but lived with him in perfect continence. His example and her words influenced his brother Tiburcius, and a friend named Maximus, to embrace Christianity. The three converts were arrested, condemned, and suifered as Christian heroes in the middle of November (though celebrated on the fourteenth of April) ; and on the twenty-second of the same month, S. Cecilia tri- umphed gloriously in the same conflict. She was buried in the cemetery of S. Calixtus, In the siege of Rome by the Lombards, it was imagined that they had possessed themselves of the relicks of the Saint. But Pope Paschal I., rebuilding the ancient church under her invocation, which had been erected before the year 500, and grieved that he could not enrich it with the precious remains of the Martyr, was informed in a dream that they still remained where they had been interred. There, ac- cordingly, they were discovered ; the body of the S aint was perfect, as was that also of S. Valerian, who reposed by her. Rolls of linen, dipped in their blood, were, after the custom of the early Church, D 2 30 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. laid at her feet. The remains of the Saints were translated into the new church, in the year 821 ; and Pope Paschal founded a monastery close to it. To the church of S. Cecilia he gave silver vessels to the weight of more than nine hundred pounds ; as also a shrine, weighing five hundred. This church was afterwards rebuilt with great magnificence by Cardinal Sfrondati. f otamiafita. VIRGIN AND MARTYR ; PROBABLY IN THE SIXTH TT is no high-born Roman lady of whom we are about to write. Holy Church loves to exalt the humble and the meek. A poor Alexandrian slave^ whose life was spent in misery, and whose death, to the eyes of the world, was without honour, is enrolled in her calendar, as worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance. The Church of Alexandria, hereafter to produce ^wo of the greatest champions for Catholick Truth, S. ithanasias and S. Cyril, was watered plentifully mth the blood of martyrs. During the persecu- :ion of Severus, Origen, not then guilty of those un- warrantable and perverse doctrines which have so nuch detracted from his reputation, by his writings, iiis conversations, and his example, encouraged many 10 fight valiantly for Jesus Christ. Yet it was >robably not from his lips, nor through his means. persecution. A.D. 210. 32 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. that Potamiaena, the slave of a wealthy inhabitant of Alexandria, received the knowledge of the true faith. Possessed of rare beauty, she attracted the eye of her master ; and his evil passions were but the more enkindled by the refusal with which he met from the Christian maiden. He had wealth in his possession wherewith to bribe her ; he had pleasures at his command wherewith to corrupt her ; and he wanted neither will to threaten, nor power to carry his threats into execution. For, by the Roman law, slaves were the absolute property of their lords ; and scourging to death and crucifixion were but too commonly employed as a punishment and in revenge. But the master who owned Potamiaena, either desiring to make her punishment more public, or hoping, by the terrors of a tribunal, to bend her to his wishes, denounced her as a Christian to the Augustal Prsefect. " If," said he, " she will obey me, I have no wish to press the charge ; if not, I leave her in your hands, to be dealt with according to her deserts." "And doubt not," replied the Preefect, " that the sight of our preparations will bring her to a better mind. It is well enough for those that are of high birth to shew their courage by. professing to despise torment, like that mad-brained Origen, whom tlie gods deliver into my hands ! but that a slave should stand on her courage, — by Bacchus, it is not to be endured !" For the Augustal knew not that S. POTAMI^NA. 33 the slave of this world may be the freeman of Christ. So Licinius took his place on the judgment-seat, and Potamieena was brought before him to answer for herself. Soldiers, instead of lictors, stood around the tribunal ; Mgjpt was one, and indeed the most honourable, of the emperor's provinces. And ex- posed to the gaze of these rude men, the open and licentious scorn of the magistrate, the unrepressed mirth of the officials, and the total disregard which all entertained for the feelings of a slave, Christ's Martyr, in few and brief words, replied, as Joseph, How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God ?" The Prsefect looked at the curator of the city, and the curator gave orders to some of the sturdiest among the soldiers, and Potamieena soon gave witness to the strength of her Lord, by proving the weakness and insufficiency of the rack. "It is a new thing," said the Augustal, "that a slave should set herself up against her master ; and for a new crime we must devise a new punishment. Let a cauldron of pitch be made ready in the great square of Isis, and when it is boiling, strip her of her garments, and throw her therein."' " Not so, by the head of the emperor," answered Potamisena. " You think to shake my resolution ; and I can make your punishment yet the more terrible. Let me but wear these garments in the hour of my 34 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. death, and cause me, if you will, to be by slow degrees immersed in that same vessel of pitch. Then you may judge whether Christ hath power to defend His own." " Now, by Hercules," cried the Prsefect, " I have heard much of the madness of these Nazarenes ; but this girl passes all. Be it, in the name of Castor, as you will ; pity that so much good courage should be thrown away ! But hark thee, slave ; be better ad- vised, and give up your fantastic ideas of virtue. I counsel you for your own good." A magistrate," answered Potamisena, and counsel me to that adultery which the laws punish !" " Well, I have said," replied the Augustal. Basi- lides," addressing a centurion, " I put the matter into your hands." It was a long and a weary road from the tribunal to the Temple of Tsis, and the people flocked after the Martyr, with gestures of hatred, and words of infamy. They blasphemed the Crucified, — they in- sulted His servant ; and made her, from very shame, suffer a bitter passion before her death. She, like her Lord, had a baptism to be baptized with ; she, like Him, was straightened till it was accomplished. And yet none believed that her resolution would yield ; for, till the Decian persecution, apostacy was comparatively rare. The young knight Lucius iEmilius offered ten sestertia to one that she would not give in, and he was obliged to double the sum S. POTAMIJENA. 35 before it was accepted. Geta, his slave, betted an aureus against a victoria tus, to the same effect. "It grieves me much/ maiden/' said Basihdes, "to have this office. To you I may well say, that though I deem this Christian frenzy madness, I can never approve that an Augustal should recommend crime. You have done nobly in disobeying your lord ; I only wish it had been from a more sensible reason." " I thank you, good Basilides," replied the maiden ; " and I believe you speak but as you think. And yet what better reason could I have than that I have ? It is written in our law. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And Him I am now going to see, and -to stand in His Presence for ever." "In the Presence of the Crucified One ?" asked the centurion. "Even so," replied Potamisena. "And could you tell what that means, to stand in His Presence, you would rather congratulate me that I am so speedily going hence." " By a rough passage, though," said Basilides. " In truth, O centurion, it is ; but yet also a short one. I think I have heard that you once gained a mural crown ?" "I did so," answered the soldier, " and I value it beyond all my goods." " Was it won easily ?" asked the maiden. 36 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. " By Mars ! no. It was in the sack of Artaxata that I mounted the wall first ; and it had like to have been my last honour." "And was the honour worth the trouble and danger ?" "Had you been born a man, Potamisena, you would not have asked." " And even because I am a Christian, I do ask. What ! a poor, pitiful mural crown worth all that risk, not only of life, but of the crown itself ; for if life goes, how can honour profit ? and shall not a Crown of light, immutable, immortal, unfading, be worth a little pain? You, had you died, would never have enjoyed your crown ; I, by dying, win mine." " There must be somewhat in this I do not un- derstand," answered Basilides. "But how know you, or why think you, that you shall wear such a grown ?" " If you see me with it, will you believe that I have it ?" "I will." " Be of good courage, then : I will not forget you. And now be still : I would fain pray." " Shame, Alexandrians !" shouted Basilides, as the cries of the people grew louder, and more insulting. " Shame on you, to torment one that has more cou- rage than the whole herd of you, however mad an use she may put it to." S. POTAMIiENA. 37 " That's true/' cried one or two. Silence there! we are almost at the place." The fire was already blazing, and the melting pitch gave out its clouds of smoke. Potamisena, with a smile, bade Basilides to remember, and then looked at the apparatus of torture more unconcernedly, it seemed, than the spectators. Raised by a frame and a pulley over the heated mass, the populace watched in hope that when her sandals touched the pitch, her courage would fail, or at least that her cries would manifest her pain. But this was the Jordan which, when her feet, like the priests of old, should be dipped in its brim, was to testify to the strength of God, not the weakness of man. Far from uttering a cry, she gave no sign of pain, and with cruel slowness, was lowered into the cauldron, so that more than an hour passed before her triumph was com- pleted by her putting on immortality. Basilides^ in spite of himself, was impressed by what he saw, and almost expected that some strange thing would befall him. But a day passed, and he began to smile at the folly that had given a fair face and a sweet voice such power over his mind. That very night, he beheld, in a dream, a figure of such heavenly loveliness, that, lovely as she had been, he could hardly, in it, recognise Potamisena. On her head she wore a crown, brighter than heart can fancy ; and in her hand she bore another of nearly equal lustre. E 3S LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. "You see me/' said the martyr, "with the crown whereof I spoke : my prayers for you have been heard, and I bring you a diadem hke my own." And seeming to place it on his head, she va- nished. " Here he is himself," cried one of the comrades of Basilides, as, on the following morning, he entered the court where many were assembled : " here he is to set the matter at rest. Was it three or four hun- dred that fell at Artaxata ?" "Four hundred," answered Basilides. "But why?" " I knew I was right," said the first speaker. " Now, iEmilius, for your sextarius of Chian." " Not I," answered ^Emilius, " unless the centu- rion swears to what he says." " Fair enough," cried the other. " Swear it by- Mars, good Basilides." Basilides hesitated. " He dares not swear it," shouted ^milius : " the wager is not lost." "I dare not," answered Basilides, "but not for the reason you think." " Why not, then ?" "I am a Christian." "A Christian! ha! ha! a likely thing! Come,, Sextius, you allow that you have lost?" " By Jupiter, I believe the man is in earnest," said Sextius. " Do but look at him." And the counte- S. POTAMI^NA. 39 nance of Basilides was filled with such a calm and unutterable joy, that the soldiers gazed one on another, as if in amazement. "Fools!" cried the centurion Festus. "A man that has won a mural crown a Christian ! I would not believe it, if Apollo said so." " But you may when I say so, comrade," answered Basilides. "Take me to the Augustal; I am a Christian." " If I thought so, — " said Festus, retreating as from some unclean thing. " I pray you to think so, good Festus. It is the very truth." And the words of the historian briefly tell, how Basilides, having been committed to prison, and hav- ing there received the Seal of the Lord from the brethren, went home from the block to his reward. Of such might is the grace of God ; of such force the Intercession of Martyrs ! VIRGIN AND MARTYR UNDER ALEXANDER. ABOUT A.D. 225. " Q Paul, the preacher of truth and Apostle of the • Gentiles/' — I am quoting the words of Bishop Theobald, — "writing to the Hebrews, among other things teacheth them on this wise : Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. If then we have no continuing city here, why fear we to depart hence ? If we seek one to come, why long we to abide in this ? Let us rather seek diligently that Jerusalem which is builded as a city that is at unity with itself, and where the multitude of inhabitants causeth no straitness of room. But who is able to seek for it diligently, and to find it efficaciously? For many seek and find not, because they seek amiss. It is the voice of one seeking amiss : By night, on my bed I sought Him Whom my soul loveth. In thus seeking, we need S. MARTINA. 41 two incitements, words, and examples. The words of the wise are as goads ; and yet as Blessed Gregory teaches, we are rather moved by examples than words. Let us then," proceeds the good bishop, seek out some example of a saint, by whom we may be stirred up to fresh diligence and as he said, so say we now. Choosing, as we are bound, a Virgin Saint, where shall we find a more eminent example of love to God than in S. Martina ? Alexander had been advanced to the Roman purple: a man not indisposed to Christianity as an historical fact, but without one desire after it as a guiding principle. With the other gods, in his private chapel, he had Abraham, Orpheus, and our Blessed Lord. He was fond of the maxim, " Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them he even thought of raising a temple to Christ. It was not an era of remarkable brightness for the Early Church. Tertullian had fallen into heresy ; Origen was beginning to disseminate his erroneous doctrines, afterwards so long to trouble the Church ; while S. Gregory the wonder-worker and S. Cyprian had not yet arisen to be its guides and its doctors. Martina was of a noble family at Rome. Her father, who was a Consular, left her an orphan at an early age : her possessions were considerable, her household large ; and in that crooked and perverse generation she led a blameless and harmless life. It E 2 42 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. requires to know something of the awful depravity of that dechning empire, a depravity into which Roman matrons and Roman maidens rushed still further than their husbands or brothers, — the utter extinction of every sentiment of honour, the utter annihilation of every feeling of modesty, — in order to judge of the strange appearance which the house of a Christian patrician must have exhibited. Martina, a city set upon an hill, could not be hid. Alexander heard of her religion, and commanded her to do sacrifice to Apollo. Rather order me," replied the intrepid maiden, "to call on the God That liveth for ever, and That hath made all things out of nothing. So shall Apollo be confounded, his priests put to shame, and his worshippers freed from the slavery of their foul idolatry." There was a concourse of people to the Temple of Apollo. The god, the work of a Grecian artist, stood exulting in his strength : his house was rich with gold and silver, and fragrant with incense. Oxen, crowned with flowers, were led to the altar: arus- pices and curiones and quindecemviri were there ; and in the midst of the glory of idolatry, and the pomp of devils, stood one Christian maiden, ready to do battle with the powers of darkness. She remained in silence for a little space, and raised her heart to God in earnest prayer ; and He, Who is more to be feared than all the gods, heard and answered her suppli- cations. The same hour there was a great earth- S, MARTINA, 43 quake : and the shaken walls of the temple of Apollo owned the weakness of their lord and protector, Alexander could not hear this public insult. He gave orders that the holy maiden should be mangled with iron hooks ; and regardless of the complaint of the torturers^ that they sulfered more than their victim, continued to urge them on in their bloody work, and upbraided them that they were baffled by a woman. If she is proof against steel/ ^ he exclaimed^ " let her feel the torture of the broken potsherds : then let her, if she dares, retain her belief in Christ." " Blessed art Thou, O Lord Jesxj," exclaimed S. Martina, ^^who givest Thy Grace to them that put their trust in Thee. Hear me now. Lord, giving to me patience, and to my persecutors con- version.'^ A celestial light shone around her as she spoke ; and the executioners, eight in number, unable to abide its brightness, fell on their faces, and be- sought her forgiveness. "If," she said, "ye will turn to my Lord Jestjs Christ, and believe with the whole heart that He will render to every one accord- ing to his deeds, ye shall receive the rewards which He hath promised to them that love Him. But if not, know of a surety, that tremendous and eternal punishments will await you in the world to come." The men, turning to Alexander, defied his gods, and renounced their service. "We will not worship," they cried, " the idols that are of wood and stone ; we learn in Martina the Omnipotence of God, and of I 44 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. His Son Jesus Christ our Lord." The Em- peror's fury became uncontrollable : they were hung up on high, and long tortured with the iron spat ha : but as they remained firm to the end, their heads were struck from their bodies, and from cruel perse- cutors they became glorious Martyrs. Martina was remanded to prison, and in a few days after was again brought forth to suffer. The chronicles are painfully minute in describing the agonies of this noble Athlete : how, stretched on four poles, she bore the strokes of two centurions : how three times the torturers were changed, con- stancy overcoming physical strength : how Eume- nius, a bigoted pagan, suggested that she should be carried back into prison, and anointed with burning fat : how his barbarous proposal was carried out : and how, in the stillness of the night, as she sang praises to God, celestial voices were heard to take up her song. But we write for gentle hearts : we will not dwell on sufferings that have long been over. A third time did S. Martina face her enemies ; and retired from the contest more than victor, with the glorious marks of an hundred and eighteen wounds. The Prsefect, to whom the management of this trial had been committed, went to the Emperor, who was at supper, and exposed to him its failure : and, finding that all their efforts were in vain, they resolved to expose the sufferer to the fury of wild beasts. S. MARTINA. 45 In the amphitheatre of Titus stood the Christian maiden, exposed to the glare of eighty thousand pitiless eyes, helpless, and unfriended, save by the Helper of the friendless. They, in their luxurious seats, awaited the issue of the contest : she nerved herself for it in the bare arena, by fervent prayer ; they inhaled the sweet perfumes that the carved figures emitted : she was worn out by hunger and and thirst, by cold and nakedness ; they triumphed with the prince of this world : she suffered with her Suffering Head. A lion was loosed from his den, and S. Thecla's miracle was repeated in S. Martina. Springing forward, he cast himself at the Virgin's feet: and then, as if seeking to revenge her injuries, with a mighty bound cleared the rail and the canal that surrounded the arena, and the breastwork that fenced the podium. Eumenius was seated, in the pomp of this world, by the side of the Emperor ; one blow of the monster's paw sent him to his account. For a fourth time was Martina presented to tor- ture : for a fourth time was the flesh torn from the bones, and the joints and the marrow divided. A pile was lighted, and she was committed to the flames : the flames refused their oflice, and the virgin came forth unhurt. The Emperor conceived that her strength lay in some hidden charm : her long hair was cut off, and she was commanded to sacrifice to Diana, Three days she remained in her temple, hallowing it by prayer and praise ; and when 46 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. they went to loose her, the idol had fallen into dust. Finally, she received the Crown of Martyrdom by the hands of the executioner on the first, and is commemorated by the Church on the thirtieth, day of January, *'None," says the Seraphic Doctor, "is to be praised before the triumph, none to be crowned be- fore the victory. We must not talk of the mariner's safety until his vessel is in the port ; because while the wind blows, and the waves swell, we know not whether he will ever reach the harbour. We must not talk of the soldier's glory, while the war is in- complete ; it is true that he may conquer, but it is true also that he may be overcome. But this Holy Virgin and Martyr hath already entered the port, hath already obtained the victory ; and accordingly the words of the Holy Psalmist speak her praise : Full of grace are thy lips, because God hath blessed thee for ever. First, of the virtuous eloquence, that manifested itself in her labours ; then, of the glorious excellence, that shines in her reward. The first, her mortal existence wherein she fought: the second, her immortal life, wherein she triumphs. Grace, to honour the Divine Majesty, grace to shame self-will, grace to have pity on her neighbours, grace to tole- rate adversity. And God hath therefore blessed her for ever. For it is seemly, and consonant with reason, that she who lived gloriously in her pilgrimage, should gloriously reign in her Country. Blessed : not S. MARTINA, 47 only with temporal, nor only with spiritual hlessings, but with both. For the earth, — and this blessed Virgin humbled herself as low as to the earth, — that drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, — the rain of tears, and sighs, and afflictions, — receiveth blessing of God. This was the true Abigail, of whom it was said. Blessed be thy words, — this is her earthly, — and blessed be thou, — this is her Heavenly, benediction. This was the true Judith, to whom they spake. Thou art the exaltation of Je- rusalem, thou art the great glory of Israel : thou hast done much good to Israel, and God is pleased therewith : blessed be thou of the Almighty Lord for evermore." [It is fair to state that the Acts of S. Martina are allowed by all to be interpolated ; and have been, by some critics, totally rejected. But there is no doubt that in their general features, to say the least, they are correct. S. Martina is esteemed the espe- cial patroness of the City of Rome.] 2^ 2^ VIRGIN AND MARTYR IN THE EIGHTH MONG the most illustrious Virgin Martyrs of the Western Church, stands the name of S. Agatha. The towns of Palermo and Catana contend for the honour of her birth, and share that of her passion. But it matters little who were her fellow-citizens on earth, to those who hope, one day, to be her fellow-citizens in a better Country. Her high birth, her beauty, her wealth, rendered her famous in the province where she dwelt. But her parents were Christians, and they early taught her that the fashion of this world passeth away. The house of her hopes was founded on a rock ; so that, when the rain descended and the floods came, it fell not. The Decian persecution broke out over the Church ; and its violence was such, that, had it been possible, the very elect must have fallen away. Never was PERSECUTION. A.D. 251. S. AGATHA. 49 terror greater : never were apostacies more frequent. At Alexandria, more especially, some denied Christ before they were accused of confessing Him ; some, with pale faces and trembling hands, offered sa- crifice to demon-idols ; some, who shewed good courage at first, fainted under prolonged torture, and fell away from the Lord That bought them. Among the most illustrious of Christ's champions were S. Babylas of Antioch, (the same whose relicks afterwards silenced the oracle of Daphne,) S. Pionius, and S. Peter of Lampsacus ; but none obtained a more glorious victory over the powers of darkness than the Virgin Martyr of Palermo. From her earliest age, though wooed by many, 3he resolved to dedicate herself to the Heavenly Bridegroom. Among those whom her beauty and wealth had made her lovers, was Quintian, Proconsul of Sicily ; and foiled in his aim, the hatred where- with he hated her was greater than the love where- with he had loved her. Desiring revenge, he knew not where to find it, except it should be in the law of her God ; and the Emperor's edict against Christianity opportunely seconded his wishes. The Hctors went to the Virgin's dwelling, and bare the command to sacrifice. Detaining them for a while, she went into her chamber, and falling on her knees, said, "Lord Jesus Christ, Thou only knowest my heart's affections. Thou knowest my willing- ness and ready desire, my trust in Thee, my love to F 50 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Thee. And now. Lord, I beseech Thee, let not this man of violence boast himself against me ; but arise against my enemy the devil, and against his earthly minister. And receiving these my tears, as an acceptable sacrifice and oblation, let him not say. Where is now her God ?" Thus she went forth, comforting herself in the knowledge that her dear Lord, Who Himself had suffered, would be a spectator of her conflict ; that the Holy Angels, with whom she was to dwell, would wait on the servants, since they had ministered to the Master ; and that the Martyrs who had fallen from the first persecution to this would be a great cloud of witnesses to assist and to comfort. If she wept, it was at the unbelief of her fellow-citizens of Palermo, who allowed her to go to that terrible trial at Catana alone ; and yet not alone, for her ever present Protector was with her. And so she stood before the Proconsul. But Quintian, unwilling to injure the beauty which he yet hoped to call his own, committed her to the keeping of an evil woman, named Aphrodisia ; and she, with her abandoned daughters, endeavoured for a whole month to corrupt the mind, and to weaken the resolution, of their prisoner. At the end of that time she went to the Proconsul, and informed him of her ill success : — It is easier," said she, " to soften stones, than to alter the resolution of that obstinate Christian." Sitting at his tribunal, he S. AGATHA. 51 commanded her to be brought before him ; and her Acts thus give the dialogue that passed. QuiNTiAN. Of what family are you? S. Agatha. Not only noble and illustrious, but many among us are wealthy. QuiNTiAN. If this be so, why by your behaviour, imitate a slave ? S. Agatha. It is well said. Because I am the handmaid of Christ, therefore I act as if I were a slave. QuiNTiAN. Being in reality free, how can you profess the contrary ? S. Agatha. It is our boast and our glory to be the slaves of Christ. QuiNTiAN. What then? Are not we free, who reject such a servitude ? S. Agatha. So far from it, you are in miserable bondage and captivity ; you are not only servants of sin, but adorers of abominable and senseless idols, and give to stocks and stones that honour which is due to God. QuiNTiAN. If you blaspheme, we have punish- ments at hand. But before you brave the tortures that I can inflict, let me know why you refuse to worship the gods. S. Agatha. Not gods, but devils : things made of brass, and marble, and chalk, and gilt and orna- mented to your will. QuiNTiAN. Be wise, and sacrifice. If not, you 52 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. shall bear your part in the torments of the con- demned ; and when you have dishonoured your family, then you will be glad to obey my com- mands. S. Agatha. Be your wife like Venus, and your- self like Jupiter. Strike her," cried Quintian. " How dare you to revile your governor ? S. Agatha. Do you not desire to resemble, and to be one of, your gods ? Quintian. You must be in love with pain, thus to provoke me to have recourse to it. S. Agatha. I marvel that a wise man should be unwilling to inherit the estate of the gods. If you worship them, my prayer was good ; if you reject them, then, with me, call them execrable. Quintian. Your pride is intolerable. Sacrifice, or prepare for torture. S. Agatha. Expose me to the beasts, they will grow tame at the name of Christ. Cast me into the fire, angels will supply me with dew from Heaven. Torture me with the scourge, I have the spirit of truth, which will set me free from your hands. S. Agatha was remanded to prison ; and retired from the judgment seat with all joy, commendhig the further issue of her confiiict to the Almighty Saviour. And she soon needed an omnipotent helper. For on the following day, she was again S. AGATHA. 53 led before the tribmiai. Have you considered/^ demanded Quintian, of your safety ?" My safety," replied Agatha, is Christ." How much longer," inquired the judge, " will you follow this miserable frenzy? Deny Christ, and worship the gods ; or else life and the enjoyments of your age will be taken from you, and you will be cut off in the flower of your beauty." Rather," said Agatha, " deny your gods, which are wood and stone ; and come to the True God, the Maker of yourself and of all, fearing the everlasting punish- ments that He hath in store for the wicked." We would not needlessly pain a feeling heart ; and yet we may not dishonour the Martyr by concealing her sufferings, and thus lessening her glory. The equuleus, on which she was stretched, was a subtle invention of diabolical cruelty, and capable, but for the strength of that love which is mightier than torture, of rendering the most courageous Christian an Apostate. It consisted of a frame, some eight feet in height ; at each end were two uprights, supporting on their summit a horizontal beam. On this beam the sufferer was extended, the legs and arms being stretched and strained out to their utmost extent, by fidiculce or ropes attached to them, and worked by pulleys at each foot of the uprights. The horizontal beam, by a peculiar mechanism, opened longitudinally, and thus permitted the body of the victim to fall through, and hang with all its F 2 54 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. weight 'upon the legs and arms, often dislocated by the sudden jerk. And this position of torture was itself but preparatory for further tortures. For then the scourges, the phimbat a, or leaded whips, the scor- pions, or cords spangled with points, the nervi, or animal sinews, the knotted clubs, might be applied to the suffering fame ; then might the torch, the iron pinchers, the hook, the comb, the red-hot metal plates mangle and burn : — and the interro- gatory recommenced when the Martyr was wearied out with agony, but still suspended by the fidiculse. Is it not worse than folly to question the miracles of the Martyrs, when their Martyrdom itself was the greatest miracle of all ? S. Agatha suffered long and nobly under the scourge ; and while still suspended, she was tried with the Proconsul's persuasion. "Agatha," he said, "be wise, and your life shall be spared." " Your torments," replied Agatha, " are laying up for me a store of joy ; and I rejoice, like one that hears a pleasant message, or sees a beloved face, or finds hidden treasure ; so enraptured am I with the tem- poral torments, wherewith you threaten me. For, before the wheat is laid up in the gamer, it must needs have been beaten on the threshing floor ; and my soul cannot enter into Paradise, before my body has suffered your tortures." Quintian, beside himself with fury, disgraced himself and his fasces by unheard-of cruelty, and S. AGATHA. 5l5 ordered the breasts of the Holy Virgin to be cut off. " Cruel tyrant," she said, " can you thus, without blushing, treat a woman ? Can you thus dishonour that from which you received your earliest nourish- ment ? But, mangled as my earthly body may be, ! I shall not appear less beautiful when presented before the Heavenly Bridegroom." I The Proconsul went to his palace, to eat and to I drink ; S. Agatha returned to prison, under a com- mandment to the gaoler that her wounds should remain untended, and her burning thirst unslacked. But that night a glorious vision stood by her side ; an aged Saint entered the prison, and spake words of consolation and love. This was the Apostle S. Peter, who so perfectly, with a word, cured the wounds of the Martyr, that she was restored as when her conflict had begun. The Saint vanished ; a great light shone from Heaven ; the keepers fled, and the prisoners exhorted the Martyr to flight. " God forbid," she replied, " that I should thus be deprived of my crown, and bring the keepers of the prison into peril of their lives. For I have a Helper in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who hath now cured. Who still i consoles. Who will never forsake me." ! On the fourth day she stood again before the Proconsul. To his threats and taunts she answered as before ; and in proof of His Power Whom she gloried to serve, she pointed to lier healed wounds 66 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. and restored frame. "Who ventured to heal you ?" demanded Quintian in a fury. " Jesus Christ," rephed the Martyr, " the Son of the Living God." "Nothing but Christ!" answered Quintian: "I hate His very Name." " And I," said Agatha, " will not cease while I have life, to invoke Him with my lips, and to glorify Him in my heart." " Let us see, then," cried the judge, "whether your Christ can preserve you." And he ordered the ground to be strewed with potsherds, and hot coals to be sprinkled over them. On these the Virgin was thrown, and at the same hour there was a fearful earthquake. Two of the friends of Quintian, who urged him on in his wickedness, were slain ; and Catana trembled to its base. Multitudes rushed to the tribunal, and exclaimed against the rigour of the judge. He, fearing an insurrection, ordered the* Martyr a third time to her prison, and she went cheerfully. Arrived there, she stretched forth her hands, and thanking God for the grace He had bestowed on her, prayed for a speedy release. And at the same instant she went hence to her glorious reward. Quintian heard of her decease, and, desirous, like Ahab, now that he had killed, to take possession,! made ready his chariot for Palermo. But, in' crossing a river, he was slain by his own horses. S. Agatha's name is in the Canon of the Mass, and is held in singular honour by the whole Church. S. AGATHA. 57 As early as the year 500, Pope Symmachus raised a church, in the AureUan Way, to her honour, and S. Gregory the Great reconciled an Arian Temple with her relicks. But the greater part rested at Catana, till transported, about a.d. 1040, to Constantinople, whence they were again restored to their native city. i J^uffina anti ^erimUa. VIRGINS AND MARTYRS IN THE NINTH PERSECUTION. A.D. 25/ TT must have been a strange contrast between Life and Corruption that Rome presented in the last and worst times of Paganism. On the one hand; the rites and ceremonies of heathenism, whicPi bore in their origin some traces of a wisdom be yond that of man, which proved his perception o his own guiltiness, and confessed his dread of th( hohness of his Maker, which referred his being anc preservation to a Higher than himself, and witnessec to his connexion with the unseen world, — all these things had lost their meaning and their reality, aiici were become little more than opportunities for the display of an unintelligible and most contemptible pomp. To believe in the gods had been long, save by the poorest class, held the sign of a madman. The politician might indeed encourage and support SS. RUFFINA AND SECUNDA. 59 their worship as calculated to strengthen civil go- vernment, and the philosopher, in adoring the deities, professed to adore that attribute of the One Un- known God which each of those beings personified : His power in Jupiter, His wisdom in Minerva, His foreknowledge in Apollo : under the title of Neptune the sage acknowledged Him That commandeth the waters : under that of Mars, Him That giveth victory unto kings ; under that of Vulcan, Him That inspires man with the skill to conceive, and That gives him the hand to execute. The poet, again, naturally clung to the old super- stitions ; and again and again echoed the now weari- some tales of Grecian Mythology. But the sweetness of the Roman Lyre, — a borrowed sweetness at best, •^had long since departed ; and perhaps for this reason among others, that its bards believed not what they sang. The satirists are full of sneers on the lying wonders of Greece : the nation accustomed to the bloody shows of the amphitheatre lost all taste for true pathos and ardent passion ; and poetry, worthy of the name, was extinct. For from bard and philosopher, from politician and historian, had vanished the very name of Faith. Faith, on the other hand, was the life and essence of the Infant Church ; faith in the glorious deeds of still earlier times ; faith in the ever-present and miraculous assistances of the Almighty ; faith in the intercession of His Martyrs ; faith in the mysterious 60 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. virtue of their relicks. But stilly as yet, the glory which was afterwards to invest the future manifesta- tions of the Church was not ; the dim Cathedral, the solemn High Mass, the gorgeous procession, — the things for which we love and venerate the middle ages, — had yet to be called into life ; they had to be created by that which they at once adorned and symbolized. As yet the earth was not the Lord's, and the fulness thereof : the glory of the world was on the side of heathenism ; and the two antagonist systems met, the one a body without a soul, the other (it might almost be said) a soul without a body. It was the time when Valerian had declared war against the Church. In his persecution (variously reckoned as the eighth or ninth) a goodly multitude were added to the noble army of Martyrs. S. Cyprian of Carthage, and S. Stephen of Rome, opposed in a doubtful question on earth, blessed co-inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven ; S. Law- rence the glorious Deacon ; S. Denys of Paris ; Pope S. Sixtus ; all these laid down their lives for Christ. The sufferings of the Church were pro- longed for three years and a half : — power was given unto him," — so S. Dionysius of Alexandria applied the text, — " to continue forty and two months." Towards the commencement of this period those of whom we write triumphed by dying. SS. RUFFINA AND SECUNDA. 61 Ruffina and Secunda were sisters, and by birth natives of Rome ; their parents were of the rank of the Clarissimi. Destined by them to support the honours of their ancient family, they were betrothed to two Christian youths, Armentarius, andVerinus. Thus all things seemed to smile upon them ; all the luxuries of that luxurious city^ all the pleasures that youth or wealth or beauty could give. But God had higher designs for His servants ; He would not that their hearts should be ensnared by this world, or that the flowery paths they trod should impede their vigour in the race. Persecution broke out ; their lovers fell away ; and, not content with becom- ing apostates, proceeded to be tempters. Unwilling to listen to such persuasions, the sisters prepared to seek refuge in their country villa; but, with whatever secresy they made arrangements for their journey, Armentarius and Verinus heard of their design. Hastening to Count Arcesilaus, they ac- cused those whom they were bound to cherish and to protect : deniers themselves of Christ, they wrought woe to those that still dared to confess Him. The Count called to horse ; and, hurrying with his attendants along the Flaminian way, he overtook the fugitives at the fourteenth mile-stone. Return- ing to Rome, he delivered them into the hands of Junius Donatus, Prsefect of the City. "These sacrilegious Virgins," said he, "live contrary to our laws, deny the gods, and desert the temples. Their G 62 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. guilt I learnt from their betrothed lovers ; and since our uneonquered Emperors have given "me a duty to perform, I followed them in their flight to the country, and now send them for examination to your Magnificence." Taught by the Father of evil, who well knows that if two are together, the weaker may be assisted by the stronger member of Christ, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth ! — the Preefect gave orders that the sisters should be confined separately. Ruffina was first summoned to the in- terrogatory. " You are of noble birth," said Junius Donatus, " and how can you voluntarily submit to shame and captivity?" *^This temporal imprison- ment," replied the maiden, ^'preserves me from everlasting chains ; these bands that are but for a moment shall set me at liberty from eternal fetters." "Away with these childish fables," cried Donatus; "and sacrifice to the immortal gods. You have wealth and love awaiting you ; you have an ever new change of delights, to charm every hour till old age shall come gently upon you." " Your promises are liberal," said Ruffina ; " you engage that I shall reach old age, when you yourself are not secure of an hour's life." " It were wisdom," replied Donatus, " to preserve yourself from sufferings, and to make the most of the time that you may yet have to call your own." " Now," answered Ruffina, " you speak more truly. How know I the length of that time? SS. RUFFINA AND SECUNDA. 63 I embrace that Eternal Life, which has no Umit to its duration, and no uncertainty in its pleasures." "Enough of words/' answered the Prsefect ; "give .your hand to him to whom you are betrothed." " That cannot be/' remarked Arcesilaus ; " the Christian is guilty of sacrilege, and as such cannot contract a legal marriage." Secunda was summoned, that the sight of her sister's sufferings might induce her, by submission, to avert her own. She came, therefore, to behold Ruffina torn by the rod of the lictor. "This is indeed cruelty," cried the Virgin, as she gazed on that spectacle ; " you give my sister an honour which you enviously refuse to me." " If Ruffina is mad," retorted Donatus, " you, as it seems to me, are ten times more so." "We are not mad," replied Secunda, " but we are* Christians. It is just that we who believe alike, should also suffer alike. And we suffer the more gladly, because the wounds which we receive here will be so many marks of glory hereafter." Threatened with ex- posure to the insults of the Roman youth, she replied that purity of heart was that which Christ required, a grace which the violence of wicked men could never take away. It pleased God to make illustrious the greatness of His Power in the protection which He bestowed on His servants. The fetid smoke which was to be their torment in prison, was changed into an 64 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. I aromatick odour ; the darkness of the dungeon was converted into noonday splendour ; thrown into a boihng cauldron, they came out unhurt ; cast into the Tyber, they could not be drowned. " Your prisoners/' said Donatus to Arcesilaus, are either endued with amazing powers of witchcraft, or pro- tected by admirable sanctity of life. I will have nothing more to do in the matter ; use your own pleasure with them." By the orders of the Count, the sisters, happy in suffering together, were led out on the Cornelian way as far as the tenth milestone, and there be- headed, and left unburied. But a Gentile matron, named Plautilla, on whose estate they were slain, was miraculously warned by the glorified Martyrs to leave the worship of idols, and to bury their remains. Many miracles were wrought at their tomb ; and the Church commemorates them on the tenth day of July. VIRGIN AND MARTYR IN THE TENTH PERSECUTION. BETWEEN THE YEARS 286 AND 292. TT was in the pleasant country of Aquitaine, and in the Httle city of Agen, that Faith, the Virgin Martyr, was born. Her family was of some rank ; and her parents were Christians. Those were times in which the name of Christ was not to he pro- fessed with impunity ; when there was no halting between two opinions ; when none knew where the tide of persecution might next sweep, or who might be the next to be called to the Crown of Martyrdom, or the Denial of the Faith. Dioclesian was now Emperor of Rome. It would seem, as if, previous to the cessation of all Pagan persecution, Satan was permitted to make one des- perate effort for the destruction of the Faith. From East to West the edict of persecution went forth. Syria, and Palestine, and iEgypt, and Africa, and G 2 66 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Spain, and Britain, and Gaul, all of these lands sent forth their champions for the Truth, all of them added to the number of the noble army of Martyrs. Happy then were they, who were called earliest to their crown. For though the Lord Jesus was evidently with His Church, purifying, comforting, strengthening it, though acts of Christian heroism were done, famous to all ages in the Church Militant, doubtless no less renowned in the Church Triumphant, yet what affectionate heart, — such as hers of whom we write, — could hear unmoved of the earthly suffering, by which the eternal weight of glory was attained ? What humble soul could but fear, that where so many others had triumphed, its own courage might fail ? Those who had already been called hence, were freed from such doubts for ever ; the anguish was over, and the joy remained ; the fear was changed into certainty of good, the anticipation into joyful reality. Long and fearful was the conflict between the Cross and the powers of darkness ; for thirty years the rulers of this world took counsel against the Son of God ; and for thirty years His courage- ous Martyrs suffered with Him, that they might reign with Him. Happiest then, a thousand times, they who were soonest called ! Dacian was praafect of Gaul ; the bloody servant of a bloody master. From town to town in his government he hastened on the errand of persecu- tion ; everywhere his malice was defeated by patience; S. FAITH, 67 everjAvhere lie killed the body, and then had no more that he could do. And now the news was spread that he was about to visit Agen. Then was the time that the faith of the Church was sifted ; then some of those who had spoken most confidently trembled and turned pale ; then was strength made perfect in the weak- ness of some that had been fainthearted. It was a time, in Christian families, of much and earnest prayer ; of self-examination and penitence ; of love and forgiveness of injuries ; of quiet commendation of each other into the hands of an Almighty Father ; but not a time of gloom. He, wholoveth a willing sacrifice, gave His people such grace, that when they confessed Him, it was not through their tears. Brothers went forth to their trade or their occupations, not knowing whether of them might be called to witness a good confession ; sister lay down to sleep by sister, not knowing whether the frame, which she so fondly cksped, might not, ere the fol- lowing evening, have been torn by the scourge, or rent by the wild beast ; fathers looked on their families and longed to know which of their children would first be taken, and prayed with earnest faith that the dear one, who was thus to glorify God, might be in a double measure strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. Faith had early been noted for her purity of heart and holiness of life ; and, just at the age when 68 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS, others begin to think of earthly bridals, did she set her heart on the eternal love of the Heavenly Bride- groom. And He, in Whom she trusted with all her strength, to Whom she devoted herself with all her might, Whom she loved with her whole heart, was pleased, in an especial manner, to magnify His grace in her. There was a Christian in the same city, named Caprais ; a true servant of the Crucified, fearing above all things to deny Him ; yet fearing also to suifer for Him. He would not await the visit of Dacian ; he left the city secretly, and retired to a hill by which it is overhung ; and there in a desolate cave he took up his abode, intending to return when the persecution should be past. But S. Faith, though, in obedience to the teaching of the Church, she would not expose herself to danger, refused to leave the city ; and, in her father's house, she continued constant in fasting and prayer. ^ It was in the beginning of October that Dacian arrived at Agen. Informatio^ns flowed in against the professors of the execrable superstition ; the court was formed ; the prsefect in his chair of state ; the lictors at his side ; the altar dressed for sacrifice ; the priests in attendance. But the heart of Dacian was not in his work. He had been often baffled, and he felt that he again might be so, by the courage of men ; but that one so young, and so tender as Faith, of whom he had heard much, could do more than look on the torture and yield, passed his belief. S. FAITH. 69 Commands were issued that search should be made above all things, for her ; so that Agen might have the honour of having educated at least one who would return from the service of the Nazarene to the ancient worship of Rome. Faith was speedily informed of the edict ; and she knew that her hour was come. To escape the search of the lictors would have been hopeless ; to attempt further concealment, dangerous to other Christians. Not that the Martyr reasoned with these cold ar- guments ; her heart burned mthin her that she might now prove her love to Him Who had so dearly loved her ; her one desire was so to think, to speak, to do, as that He might be most gloriously manifested in her death. She chose for herself — it was the wont of the Martrys — her richest apparel ; and never did mother deck out her daughter more gladly for the earthly bridal, than did the mother of S. Faith, (would that legend had preserved her name !) array her child for the heavenly nuptials. Not, we may well be sure, with gold or pearls, or costly array; but with the maiden's toga prcetexta, or white gown bordered with purple ; the seemly palla, the white shoes, and the modest veil. And we may form some faint idea of the words of comfort, of encourage- ment, of resignation, of the caresses and tears, half of sorrow, half of joy, that accompanied the parting of the Martyr and the Christian mother. She who had been so tenderly reared, who had never heard 70 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. word of unkindness, who had been shielded and sheltered from the trials that others had known, was to be exposed to the taunts, and jeers, and insults, of the populace ; she, who had hitherto poured out \ all her griefs in her mother's bosom, was now to | stand alone in the midst of cruel foes ; she, whose slightest pain had been tended with careful love, was to be exposed to agonies, from which the sturdiest centurion would have thought no shame to shrink with horror. " Go forth, then, my own Faith, to your trial, that you may chus pass to your crown ; and He, Who has strengthened others, as weak for the conflict, strengthen you ! To Him you were given at your Baptism ; and He claims His own. He hath suffered more than you can suifer, and He calls you to tread in His steps. To-morrow, and what will the short pain matter? A century to come, and what would the ease to be won by apos- tacy profit ? He putteth forth His lambs, my Faith, as well as His sheep ; and when He putteth them forth. He goeth before them." " And the sheep follow Him," returned Faith, "as by His grace I shall now do ; for they know His voice." The court was crowded by disguised friends and open foes, as with a firm step the Christian Maiden entered. There is one part of the sufferings of the Martyrs, — doubly painful to a Virgin Martyr, — which we too little take into account : the great shame of the trial, the greater shame of the punish- S, FAITH. 71 ment. The bodily sufferings of the Confessor have been written down^, with painful accuracy, in legends and acts ; the mental agony which must have been endured from the brutal jest, the yell of contempt, the unseemly taunt, all this is passed in silence. Yet suffered it was, and suffered easily for Him, Who for our sake despised all shame. The Roman soldier was baffled by the Virgin-con- fessor. What was the promise of life to her whose heart was bent to attain the Fountain of Life ? the threat of torture, when the leaves of the Tree are for the healing of the nations" ? — the allurements of pleasure to His follower Who pleased not Himself ? And was it with the natural shrinking of the most courageous from pain, or not rather with a superna- tural joy that she was to glorify the Lord in the fires," that S. Faith heard her sentence? It was towards evening that Caprais, watching from his rock, saw a thick concourse of people flock- ing to the plain beneath it. A plot of ground is staked out ; the lictors and magistrates keep back the multitude : a fire is kindled, and an iron grating suspended over it. The fire and the wood were pre- pared : and the lamb for the burnt-offering stood by unmoved. And even when she was bound to that place of torture, the breeze, that carried towards him the shouts and jeers of the spectators, brought no groans nor shrieks from the sufferer. Whether it pleased the God of Martyrs, so to abate the fury of 72 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the flames, that they were, as to them of old, a moist whisthng wind" round this departing Saint, or whether she was so marvellously endued with grace, that instead of triumphing over agony, she triumphed in it, who may tell ? This only it concerns us to know, that her victory was most complete and most glorious. Several of the by-standers cried out, that the God of Christians was the true God ; and from her bed of torture, that bedstead, which like the Canaanitish monarch's, was a bedstead* of iron, thus turned into a triumphant chariot, S. Faith beheld these converts to her sufferings baptised with a bap- tism of their own blood, and enter into rest before her. Thus Satan's device was turned to his own confusion ; he protracted the agony, that it might lead to apostacy : and lo, by its very length, more souls were won to Heaven. Then it was that Caprais, descending from his hill, presented himself before the praefect, and professed himself a Christian. Twilight was coming on, and still S. Faith remained a prisoner in this world ; and still the wonder of the people rose higher and higher at her constancy. Unbind the girl," cried Dacian, " and behead her with this new Nazarene." And thus these two Martyrs went home to their rest. Both are to be had in memory for ever ; yet surely, she who bore the burden and heat of the day had the more blessed lot. And so has the Church * Deut. iii. 11. S. FAITH. 73 ever held ; and therefore she celebrates her by herself on the 6th day of October, reserving, till a later period, the other Martyrs of Agen. The holy remains of the Virgin Martyr long reposed in a church of her native city which bore her name ; for five hundred years more they rested in the Abbey of Conques, and hence were translated into Catalonia and to Glaston- bury. Churches in her name rose throughout Europe : France, more especially, and England, de- lighted to honour her ; and the Chapel of S. Faith, which formed the Crypt of old S. Paul's, is famous in our church history. " O God, Which, among the other miracles of Thy Power, hast bestowed the Crown of Martyrdom among the frailer sex, grant of Thy mercy that we, who celebrate the birthday to Eternal Life of Blessed Faith, Thy Virgin and Martyr, may, after her ex- ample, come to Thee, tiirough Christ our Lord ; to Whom with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, ever and ever. Amen." H VIRGIN AND MARTYR IN THE TENTH PERSECUTION. JAN. 22. A.D. 304. FROM the earliest ages of the Church, next to the Blessed Mother of God, S. Agnes has been considered the especial pattern and model of Virgin purity. Not only is she one of the Vir- gin Martyrs, whom the Ca:ion of the Mass names, hut she enjoys the singular honour of a double com- memoration in the Calendar. Rome had the glory of raising up this illustrious servant of Christ. In her thirteenth year, and while yet being educated at school, she was seen and loved by the son of the Prsefect of the city. Gold and silver, gems and ornaments, these were the in- struments by which he pleaded his passion ; and, in the eyes of her whom he sought, they had no more value than very dust. Friends and relations joined their prayers to his ; the maiden set her face like a rock to withstand their sohcitations. " I am already S. AGNES. 75 betrothed/' she replied, ''to Another: to One Whose Dignity is incomparable. Whose Love is without mea- sure. Whose Power without limit. He has given to me precious pearls, though their value is not of this world : He has in store for me brighter gems than earthly eyes can behold : He has promised to me treasures, beyond the imagination of man ; He has purchased me for Himself with no less a price than the shedding of His Own Blood : Angels are His ministers. His Throne is glory : His I am, and His I will remain." The Roman youth, unaccustomed to contradiction, and wont to give the rein to all his desires, fell sick ; to the physicians alone he discovered the cause of his disease. Symphronius, the Prsefect, on being informed on the subject, caused diligent in- quiry to be made into the reason that could cause a maiden to despise one surrounded with the dignity of the fasces. '' A previous betrothment !" exclaimed the Pagan ; '' and who can it be, that can offer more, or confer greater dignity, than my son?" A parasite, who stood by, explained that Agnes had spoken of no earthly lover, but had given herself wholly up to the Crucified Nazarene. Rejoicing in the opportunity thus afforded him of at once reveng- ing a private injury, and displaying a zeal for the publick religion, Symphronius summoned the Virgin, and commanded her to do sacrifice to Vesta. '' If," answered Agnes, '' I refused your son, vexed, it is 76 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS, true, and vexing me, by an evil spirit of love, but still a breathing, still a living, still a rational man ; much more will I shew no respect to idols, which, having eyes, see not ; having ears, hear not ; and have neither voice nor sense." "If I yet spare you awhile," replied Symphronius, "it is because the tenderness of your years excuses your blasphemies, and because our gods can avenge themselves." " Let them do so," replied the Martyr : " let them punish me for the contempt I have shewn towards them : let them at least bid me to worship them." There are harder trials of faith than the stake or the wheel : there are combats more fearful than those with wild beasts. To one of those places of infamy wherewith that profligate city abounded, was S. Agnes led. "There," said Symphronius, "let Christ, if He can, defend His own." "And if thou knewest His power," said S. Agnes, "Who is my Lord and my God, thou wouldest see how vain are thy attempts. He is a triple wall of brass around me, to preserve me from wrong : His Angel stands at my side, to be my comfort and protection." And thus the dwelling of iniquity became a House of Prayer. For as the Virgin entered it, a light so glorious shone around her, that they who came to insult, remained to wonder. He only who was the author of the evil deed, the Prsefect's son, dared with sacrilegious hands to touch the Temple of the Most High. But his crime met with signal S. AGNES. 77 chastisement ; by an unseen hand he was struck down, and falling on his face, gave up the ghost. One of his companions soon afterwards entered, and rushing forth in dismay, "Help, Romans, help," he exclaimed ; " a Christian sorceress has slain the Prsefect's son I" Then was there a rush to the theatre ; thither was xlgnes hurried ; there she stood in the midst of an infuriated multitude. Some reviled her as a sorceress ; some insulted her as a Christian ; a few dared to pronounce her innocent. Symphronius hastened to the place : " Was the force of your magic," he cried, "reserved to be exercised against my unhappy son ? It is thus you revenge yourself on one whose only fault was his love to you ? Were his affections gained by sorcery, that his life might be taken by witchcraft ?" "It was not I," returned Agnes, " that performed this deed ; he, on whose errand , that youth came, had power over his own. Why did he alone, of all that would have injured me, suffer ? Why, but that they adored the om- nipotence of the God that was my protector ; and he openly scorned and defied Him ?" " One proof only," returned Symphronius, " will I receive that your words are true : return me my son alive and sound, and I will give credit to them and to you." " Albeit," answered Agnes, " that your faith merits not this sign, yet that the power of my Lord Jesus Christ may be magnified, leave me alone with this H 2 78 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS, youth.'^ It was done as she desired; and^ in a brief space, the young man issued forth exclaiming with a loud voice, There is One God That made the Heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all tha^ is in them ; and That God is the God of the Christians. Then were gathered together the Priests and the soothsayers, the astrologers and aruspices, the augurs and the Carnilli, the Salii and the Galli. " Away with the sorceress !" they cried as one man ; " away with the murderess from the earth ! Away with her that hath power over the body to destruc* tion, and fascinates the soul to blasphemy!'' Un- willing to condemn the preserver of his son^ and afraid to be accused of impiety if he spared her, the Prsefect adopted a middle course, and requested his deputy, Aspasius, to proceed in sentencing her for whose life the people clamoured. Forthwith a fire was lighted in the midst ; it was piled with wood and heaped high ; and into it was the Martyr of Christ thrown. But the flame divided hither and thither, as having no power over the Confessor of Him That is a Consuming Fire : and she, stretching forth her hands, said-— O Almighty Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I adore Thee, for that through Thine only begotten Son, Thou hast preserved me from the hands of wicked men, and from the pollution of the Powers of Darkness. And now also I praise Thee, that, dividing the flames, Thou S. AGNES. 79 hast given me grace to glorify Thee in the fires* What hitherto I have beheved, now I behold ; what hitherto I have hoped, now I possess ; what hitherto I have desired, now I embrace. Thee I confess with my lips and heart : on Thee I hang with my whole strength. And now I come to Thee, the True and Living God, Who, with our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen." — The multitude had gazed in fury at the Maiden, over whose body the fire had no power ; and now at the conclusion of her prayer, with still greater indignation they beheld the pile extinguished. Aspasius, fearing a tumult, gave the order, and by one stroke of the sword, S. Agnes went to her Crown. Her parents, unable to sorrow for one that had so gloriously ended her course, removed the remains of her whom the King of kings had delighted to honour, to their own estate, Numentana. And thither came multitudes of Christians to praise and to pray ; nothing doubting but that their supplications would speed the better for the intercession of so illustrious a Martyr. The Pagans, hearing of this concourse, made a furious attack on those that were assembled at the tomb. All fled save the foster-sister of S. Agnes, by name Emerentiana; and she, though but a catechumen, constantly remained, upbraiding the heathen with their unbelief and cruelty. Nor is it doubtful, that, overwhelmed with the showers 80 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. of stones which they cast on her, and being thus i baptized in her own blood, she, too, entered on the possession of Eternal Blessedness ; being no less a partaker with her sister in glory than in sufferings. I Thus were these two fair lambs, nourished with the same milk in the Saviour's earthly fold, removed > to that more beautiful flock which feeds upon the Celestial Mountains. Their earthly sufferings are h recorded by Holy Church ; their heavenly joys by the lu Lord Himself. They hunger no more, neither n thirst any more, neither doth the sun light upon n them, nor any heat ; for the Lamb Which is in the > • midst of the Throne feedeth them, and leadeth them to living fountains of waters ; and God hath wiped ^ away all tears from their eyes. It was no long time after her departure, that the i parents of S. Agnes were keeping vigil at her i tomb. Suddenly a light shone around them ; and i they beheld the Heavenly band of Virgins, bright i and lovely beyond human imagination. Their vest- ; ments were wrought in gold, their countenances full of joy, and one among that number bore the linea- ments of their victorious Agnes : lineaments now how changed, how transfigured, how beatified ! At her right hand stood a lamb more white than snow; the symbol, henceforth, to all ages, of the happy Saint. The Choir stood still while S. Agnes spoke : " Dare not," said the celestial figure, " to weep for me as dead ; but rejoice and congratulate I i S. AGNES. 81 with me, that I inhabit the same bright mansions as all these whom ye behold ; and am partaker with those in Heaven, whom I ever loved on earth." • All these glorious events are held in memory by the Church Militant. For on the 21st day of January she celebrates the memory of S. Agnes ; on the 23d, S. Emerentiana ; and on the 28th, the glorious vision which comforted the sorrowing parents. The mortal remains of the Martyr await the Lord's Second Coming in the city of her birth. And yearly, on S. Agnes' Day, is a lamb solemnly blessed by the Successor of S. Peter, from the wool of which the Archiepiscopal Palls are afterwards wrought. Ssape, Warm, Ixtnt, VIRGINS AND MARTYRS, WITH THEIR COMPANIONS, IN THE TENTH PERSECUTION. APRIL 1 AND 5. A.D. 304. OT, it would seem, without a special reason. were the names of so many of the Virgin Martyrs given them at their baptism. Whether the piety of their parents sought, in those names, to express what their characters ought to be, or whether God so ordered it that they should point out that which they really were to become, the fact is the same. For was not S. Lucy a burning and a shining light ? Was not S. Margaret so true a seeker after the One True Pearl, that she laid down her life to gain it? Was not S. Agnes the very model of LAMB-like patience and purity, that she might follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth ? Is not S. Perpetua held in everlasting remem- brance by the Church, — her name occurring in the Canon of the Mass? Was not S. Agatha indeed a good soldier and servant of Jesus Christ? SS. AGAPE, CHIONIA, IRENE. 83 And S. Theodora, was she not the true Gift of God to the Church, that in her we might see how powerful is Grace to remove the dread of punish- ment, and even the fear of dishonour ? The case is the same with the Blessed Martyrs of whom we now tell. For S. Agape shewed forth the greatness of her love to Him That had so loved her as to die for her ; S. Chionia was the model of most undefiled and SNOW-WHITE purity ; and S. Irene, having her heart filled with the peace that passeth all under- standing, has long since entered into that rest and peace which remaineth for the people of God. Still we are writing of the Tenth Persecution ; but the scene of the present Martyrdom was Thessa- lonica. For there were these three holy sisters brought up ; and they there obtained the reward of most constant Confessors of Christ. And, by a somewhat singular coincidence, it was to these very Thessalonians that S. Paul, writing two cen- turies before, had spoken of their work of faith, and labour of love ; using the very same words that so well, from the meaning of her name, apply to the Martyrdom of S. Agape. The three sisters, obeying in all things the Saviour's command, left the city as soon as per- secution had broken out in it, and betook themselves to a high mountain near it. Here for some time they lay hid; but at length were arrested, and carried before Dulcetius the Governor. Here follow 84 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the Acts of their Passion, extracted from the Pro- consular hook. The information, read hy the scrihe, charged Agatho, Agape, Chionia, Irene, Casia, Phi- LIPPA, and EuTYCHiA, with refusing to eat meats offered to the gods. DuLCETius. What madness is this of yours, that you will not ohey the commands of our most re- ligious Emperor ? You, Agatho, why do not you, going to the Sacrifices, perform the rites in the accustomed manner ? Agatho. Because I am a Christian. DuLC. Do you mean to persevere, even to-day, in that profession ? Agath. Assuredly. DuLC. What say you. Agape? Agap. I helieve in the Living God, and will not lose the consciousness of having hitherto kept His commands. DuLC. But what do you say in reply, Chionia? Chion. Because I believe in the Living God, I have refused to do what you would have me do. DuLC. And you, Irene? Why have you not obeyed our most pious emperors and the Caesars ? Irene. Because I fear God. DuLC. What is your answer, Casia? Cas. I desire to save my soul. DuLC. (Perhaps misunderstanding her.) Will you partake in the offered meats ? SS. AGAPE, CHIONIA, IRENE. 85 Cas. By no means. DuLC. What say you, Philippa? Phil. The same as the others. DuLC. What is that? Phil. I had rather die than eat of your sacri- fices. DuLC. And you, Eutychia? EuTYCH. I say the same. I too had rather die than obey your commands. DuLC. Have you a husband? EuTYCH. He is dead. DuLC. How long? EuTYCH. About seven months. DuLC. How comes it to pass that you are pregnant ? EuTYCH. By the husband whom God gave me. DuLC. Well, I advise you to desist from your madness, and to return to something like reason. What say you ? Will you obey the edict ? EuTYCH. No ; for I am a Christian, and the servant of the Almighty God. DuLC. Since Eutychia is pregnant, let her be im- prisoned for the present. — Now, Agape, will you act like us, who are devoted to our Lords the Emperors and the Csesars ? Agap. No ; for it is far from my purpose to be devoted to Satan. DuLC. What do you say, Chionia? Chion. That none is able to pervert my mind. I 86 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. DuLC. Have you any of the wicked writings of the Christians in divisions, or as a whole ? Chion. We have none. For the Emperors, that now are, have taken all from us. DuLC. Who gave you this mind? Chion. Almighty God. DuLC. I mean, who advised you to this folly? Chion. Almighty God, and His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. DuLC. It is manifest, that you all ought to be subject to the obedience of our mighty Emperors. But since after so long a space of time, so many admonitions, edicts, and threats, you, lifted up by temerity and audacity, despise the just commands of the Emperors and the Caesars, persevering in the impious name of Christians ; and, being commanded, this very day, by the Stationaries, and principal soldiers, to give in a written denial of Christ, have refused to do so ; it is ordered (and he read the sentence from a paper) that Agape and Chionia, since they have transgressed the Divine Edict of the Lords Augusti and Caesars, and even yet profess the rash, vain, and, to all pious men, execrable Christian religion, be committed to the flames. — Let Agatho, Casia, and Irene, be left in prison till I shall give further orders. The Acts of the Passion of these holy Martyrs being, as I said, merely a Transcript from the Pro- consular book, give us no particulars of the victory of SS. AGAPEj CHIONIA, IRENE. 87 SS. Agape and Chionia. This only we know, that, remaining steadfast in the faith, they went, Hke Elijah, hy a chariot of fire and horses of fire into Paradise. The same afternoon, Irene was again placed before the magistrate ; and the Acts thus continue. DuLC. Your madness is plain from what has now taken place ; so many sheets, books, tablets, and pamphlets of the writings of all the impious Chris- tians that ever lived, having been preserved by you till this day. And yet you denied that you had any writings of the sort, not content with the punishment of your sisters, nor having the fear of death before your eyes. (There are, it may be re- mark, several ways in which this assertion of the Proconsul's may be reconciled with the denial of S. Chionia. Perhaps the books in question had been committed to the charge of S. Irene, so that her sister might safely say that she had none ; perhaps the other Christians had, for the more security, con- cealed them in the house of the three sisters after they had departed to the mountain.) '^But even now,^' he continued, " it will not be amiss to shew mercy ; and, if at this last hour you will acknowledge the gods, you shall be free from all punishment and peril. Are you prepared to eat the ofi*ered meat, and 1;o sacrifice?" No," replied Irene, " no, by that iVlmighty God, Who created heaven and earth, the sea and 88 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. all that therein is. Eternal fire will be their lot, who deny Jesus the Word of God." DuLC. Who persuaded you to keep those leaves and writings till to-day ? Irene. That Almighty God, Who hath com- manded us to love Him, even unto death. It was for this reason that we dared not to betray Him, but preferred the being burnt alive, or suffering any thing else, rather than to give up those writings. DuLC. Last year, when the Edict of the Emperors was first published, where did you lie hid ? Irene. Where God willed. In the mountains, God knows, under the open air. DuLC. Who supplied you with provisions? Irene. God, That giveth food to all. DuLC. Was your father aware of these doings ? Irene. Assuredly not ; he knew nothing of them. DuLC. Then which of your neighbours were? Irene. Ask them, — go to the place, — and find out who knew. DuLC. When you came back, did you read these writings in the presence of any one ? Irene. They were in our house, and we did not dare to carry them out. And it was a source of great grief to us, that we were not able to attend to them day and night, as was our custom till the year past, when we were compelled to hide them. Dulcetius proceeded to pass sentence against SS. AGAPE, CHIONIA, IRENE. 89 Irene : to the effect that she should he carried to one of the dens of infamy of which we have before spoken, and there supported on a loaf a day to be supplied by the Proconsul. And you, Zosimus/' he .continued, addressing the executioner, will answer for her appearance with your life.'^ But God preserved His servant; and four days afterwards, she stood unharmed before the Proconsul. By him she was condemned to the flames, and was instantly led off by the soldiery to a hill near the city, where her sisters had suffered. Thither she went joyfully, singing hymns and glorifying God ; and the pile being lighted, without waiting for orders, she courageously stepped into it, and so went to her reward. Of the other Confessors history has preserved no mention. This only we know, that whether they lived, they lived unto the Lord, or whether they died, they died unto the Lord ; living therefore or dying, they were the Lord's. The Martyrdom of SS. Agape and Chionia pro- bably took place on the first, that of Irene on the fifth, day of April. And on the same day of the same year, another Virgin Martyr suffered in another country : proceed we next to relate her victory. I 2 ^jy *^ ^fl/» %a/' My* '\&r w* 'w* VIRGIN AND MARTYR IN THE TENTH PERSECUTION. APRIL 6. A.D. 304. IT is worthy of notice, how seldom, in the Acts of the Martyrs, there is the shghtest approach to that romance wherewith modern writers have been pleased to invest them. The constant confession, the cruel torture, the victorious departure, these are the facts which, with but little variation of circumstances, and little amplification of the historian, have, in all instances, come down to us. The martyrdom which we are now to relate, forms, in some degree, an exception to the rule. On that account, and because we can hardly dwell too long on the Tenth Persecution, which added so many, and so glorious. Martyrs to the calendar of the Church, we will yet pause a little longer on these early years of the fourth century. Eustratius Proculus was xlugustal Praefect in Alexandria. The edict for persecution had gone S. THEODORA, 91 forth, and he hastened to obey it. The generous champions of Christ shrank not from the contest, and ^gypt had the glory of bringing up many soiis for her Lord. Among the Christians who then dwelt at Alexandria, Theodora, by her devotion and piety, was well known, both to friends and foes ; search was made for her, and she, not unwilling to be found, was brought before the tribunal. Proculus. What is your station in life? Theodora. I am a Christian, Proc. Free, or a slave ? Theod. I have already said, I am a Christian. For Christ, by His Advent, hath delivered me from the power of sin. But, so far as respects the vain and empty glory of this world, my parents are honourable. Proc. Let the city Quaestor be summoned. — Are you acquainted with this virgin ? Lucius, the Qu^stor. By your life and splen- dour, Prsefect, she is of noble birth, and of the first rank and estimation. Proc. If you are noble, why do you refuse marriage ? Theod. For the sake of Christ. For when He was made man, and dwelt in the world, being born of the ever Virgin and Mother* of God, He set * This expression is a proof that the Acts have been slightly inter- polated: the title, Mother of God, not having been generally em- ployed till the CEcumenical Council of Ephesas : though the verity it asserts was constantly taught from the beginning. 92 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. US free from corruption, and promised to us Eternal Life. And, therefore, I am persuaded, that if I persevere in His Faith, I shall remain incorruptible and untouched. Proc. The Emperors have given orders, that you who have vowed perpetual virginity, should either sacrifice to the gods, or suffer something worse. Theod. You must know, I should think, that God chiefly regards the will ; and He knows that my desire and design is purity. If I suffer wrong, you will be guilty of violence, but not I of sin. Proc. I know that you are of noble birth, and I wish to treat you accordingly, and therefore I advise you not to behave with insolence ; you will gain no- thing by so doing. For, by all the gods, the Emperors have given the command of which I but now spoke. Theod. I have told you before, that God re- gards the thoughts and purpose of the mind. For He that knoweth all things, knoweth our thoughts, and looks through our very souls. If I am con- strained to that which you say, I shall yet never regard myself as sullied thereby. If you order my head, or my hands, or my feet to be cut off, or my whole body to be torn, it is in your power to have your commands carried out. In like manner, I may be, — since you have the power of commanding it, — carried by main force to a place of sin ; but it will not be by my own act and deed. As to the in- tention of my mind, there can be no doubt that I have S. THEODORA. 93 ! dedicated myself to God, and He can, if He will, pre- serve me, as being His own, uninjured and untouched. Proc. Think, Theodora, on what your former life has been, and do not now expose yourself to injury and contempt ; the city Quaestor bears witness to the rank which your parents held, and the general esteem which they possessed. Theod. It is my duty first to confess Christ, the Fountain of all nobility and honour, and Who can preserve His turtle-dove pure and spotless to the end. Proc. How can you thus deceive yourself? Do you believe Him God, That was nailed to the Cross ? And can this preserve you in the danger to which you expose yourself? I Theod. I have faith and hope in Christ, That j suffered under Pontius Pilate, that if I persevere in His Love, and deny Him not. He will preserve me. Proc. Admire my patience, in listening to this trifling, and not ordering you at once to the torture. But, unless you make an end of these words, you shall serve, as our emperors have ordered, for a warning to other women. Theod. I am ready to give up my body to suffer what you will ; but my soul is in the Hand and Power of God alone. Proc. Strike her, and tell her not to be mad, but to sacrifice to the gods. Theod. By our Lord, I sacrifice not, nor adore demons, having the Lord for my Helper. 94 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Proc. Fool, you will compel me to do you a mischief, notwithstanding your nobility of birth. I shall give you up to those who are waiting to hear your sentence. Theod. There is no folly in confessing the Lord. And, as to the injury of which you speak, it will be my glory for ever and ever. Proc. I shall suffer this no longer, but will execute the commands of the Emperors. I bore with you as long as there seemed a possibility of per- suading you ; but if I delay any longer, I shall appear disobedient to the imperial edict. Theod. Just as you fear to disobey, and hasten to perform your orders, so I am anxious not to deny my God. For I fear to despise the True King. Proc. It is ordered that Theodora be kept in prison three days, to give her the opportunity of repentance. In the meantime, on account of her noble birth, let no injury be done to her. On the third day, the Christian maiden again stood before the tyrant. " If you have altered your perverse determination,'* said Proculus, sacrifice ; or expect the worst." Theod. I have already told you, and will repeat it again, that the promise of purity is by Christ : and He knoweth how to preserve His lamb. Proc. Let us see then if Christ, for Whose sake you persist in your obstinacy, is able to deliver you. Theod. God, Who is the searcher out of that S. THEODORA. 95 which is hidden, and Who knoweth things before they come to pass, and Who hath made good His Promise in keeping me hitherto without spot of shame, will still preserve me from ungodly and wicked men, who are prepared to wrong the handmaid of God. Thus far the Acts of the Publick Registers. Let that holy Doctor of the Church, S. Ambrose, take up the tale. ^'The dove is imprisoned within, the hawks clamour without ; each is eager to be the first to do her harm. She, meanwhile, raising her hands to heaven as if she had entered a House of Prayer, not a dwelling of sin, thus prayed: "O Christ, Thou That didst subdue the fierce lions before Daniel, canst also subdue the fierce minds of man. The fire was a cooling dew for ^he Three Children, the wave stood congealed above he Jews, not by their own natures, but by Thy nercy. Susanna, at the place of punishment, bent ler knee, and triumphed over the adulterous elders ; he hand withered that violated the gifts of Thy Temple; now they seek to dishonour Thy temple tself. Let Thy Name also now be glorified in my leliverance !" She had scarcely made an end of praying, when a soldier of great stature and terrible appearance, entered : having by threats and force broken through he crowd that waited without. But in this case was \ilfilled the sweet proverb of another land — "When hou fearest, God is nearest." This soldier was a 96 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. disguised Christian, Didymus by name, who, longing i to do something for the service of God, had hap- pened to be present at the sentence of S, Theodora, m Fear nothing," he said, " my sister. I have come i to save, and not to injure you. If I entered Uke an ; adulterer, I will go out like a Martyr. Give me your palla, (it was a kind of mantle worn over the maiden's' toga prcetexta) and take my chlamys (the soldier's scarlet cloak bordered with purple). It will be a fitting exchange ; your dress will make me a true soldier of Christ, mine will preserve you a spotless^ Virgin. You also will be a true soldier, for you have the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit." The exchange was made ; Theodora gave thanks] to God and to her preserver, and pulling his broad i galerus over her face, to escape observation, and' instructed by him how to pass the licentious crowds without, departed. Didymus, remaining in her place, awaited the issue with patience. Presently, a Pagan entered, and was struck with astonishment. "I have read," he cried, "though I never believed it till now, that Christ, whom the^ Nazarenes worship, changed water into wine. Buti here He has done more : He has changed a woman into a man. Let me hasten hence, or it may be I shall be changed in hke manner ;" and he wen£ out with ' terror. i The matter came to the ears of the Prsefect, and^ S. THEODORA. 97 he, with less faith, or more suspicion, gave orders that the soldier should he brought before him. Didymus, who expected nothing less, came with joy, and answered the questions of his judge as to who he was and what he had done. Proculus. Who set you on this deed? DiDYMUs. God inspired me to do it« Proc. Confess where Theodora is ; if not, I order you to the torture. DiDYM. By Christ Jesus, the Son of God, I know not. But this I know and am persuaded, that she is the handmaid of God, and that God hath pre- served her unspotted. Therefore I ascribe her safety not to myself, but to the Lord. God hath rewarded her according to her faith, as yourself know, if you chose to confess it. Proc. Of what condition are you ? DiDYM. Free ; for Christ hath freed me. Proc. I shall order you a double portion of torture, on account of your obstinacy. DiDYM. I hope you will do that which the emperors order. Proc. By the gods, I am in earnest, unless you choose to sacrifice ; for then I am disposed to pardon your rash attempt. DiDYM. I shew you by my actions, that I con- sider myself an athlete of God, on account of the faith that is in me. What I did, I did on two ac- counts : that Theodora might remain uninjured, and K 98 LIVES OF VIRGIN? SAINTS. that I might have an opportunity of confessing God. Remaining in the faith of my God, I shall not die through your torments. Do what you will, and do it quickly ; I sacrifice not to devils, though you give my body to be burnt. Proc. In punishment of your audacity, your head is to be struck from your body, which is then to be committed to the flames. Didymus, after giving thanks to God, was led to the place of execution. But while he was on his way thither, tidings were brought of his condemnation to Theodora. Hastening after him, she reproached him with depriving her of the Crown of Martyrdom. I chose you," she said, " only as the guardian of my honour, not as a surety for my life." " I," returned Didymus, " alone am condemned ; it is fit that I only should die." If I suffer not," said Theodora, " I have been the cause of your death ; I must die a Martyr, that I may not die a murderer. I owe you more than I can express ; let me not lose my obliga- tion to you." This holy contention was soon ended. The judge, on being informed of the dispute, directed that Theodora should suffer together with Didymus, and by the same punishment. Didymus Vas the first to receive his crown ; and the Bride of Christ followed in his steps. The Eastern Church celebrates them on the fifth, the Western on the twenty-eighth day of April. VIRGIN AND MARTYR IN THE TENTH PERSECUTION. DEC. 10. A.D. 304. [An imitation of the Third Hymn in the Peri Stephan6n of Prudentius.] li/rUCH for her birth renowned, but more -^^■^ Illustrious for the pangs she bore. Her Merida's^^^ beloved shore Repeats Eulalia's name : There first she drew her infant breath. There Christ was victor in her death. And glorious in her shame : The city of the distant west. Blest in her sons, with riches blest, Shall glory more than all the rest. In this her Martyr's fame. LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. 2. Twelve winters there, and twelve alone, Had yet the Christian maiden known. When counting sufferings sweet, And earthly loss celestial gain. The guards she spurned, she wooed the chain. And deeming ease and pleasures vain. She braved the judgment-seat. 3. Her steadfast course proclaimed of yore. Whose realm she sought. Whose yoke she wore Fixed on the bliss that dwells above. Her heart was closed to earthly love ; And even in childhood's hour She scorned the bliss that others prize : Nor gaud found favour in her eyes. Nor pearl, nor toy, nor flower : Modest in mien, in look severe. Little she recked of pleasure here. And even in earliest life she held The wisdom of declining eld. 4. And now the Csesar drew the sword Against the servants of the Lord, And bade them to the shrine abhorred The votive offering bring : S. EULALIA. 101 Their clouds of incense must arise To demon-gods in sacrifice. Who raised both heart and voice and eyes To Christ their Lord and King. Then waxed Eulaha's courage high. And ready for the faith to die. Inspired of God, by God prepared. The arms .of men the maiden dared. 5. Her mother's love would guard her still In home's sweet resting-place from ill, Would bid her fly, in country life. The city's perils and its strife. Lest all the ardour of her soul Should lead her to the Martyr's goal. Such ease to seek, such peace to share. That heavenly spirit could not bear. And resolute the worst to dare. As deeming life unworthy care, 'Neath midnight's quiet sky She left the roof her youth had known. She sought the mountain waste alone. The moor, with thorn and bramble set. The homeless solitude, where yet Angelick bands were nigh : And while she passed through outer night, He was her guide. The Light of Light. K 2 102 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. 6. 'Twas thus the column-fire of old Guided the flock of God's own fold : The shades of night were backwards rolled, The chaos scattered fast ; And so the Virgin found a ray That turned her darkness into day, As pressing on her heavenly way To realms of light she past. And many a weary league she sped, A weary step she knew, Ere heaven had tinged with morning's red Its own celestial blue : Then single, midst the Praefect's bands. Before the judgment-seat she stands. 7- " What madness, Romans !" was her cry, " To slay the souls that should not die. Urging them on, by fear and thrall. Thus to make shipwreck of their all. And, by the dread of suffering bent. Deny the Lord Omnipotent? Seek ye that Christ's elect should die Beneath your torments ? here am I, Sworn foe to demon fanes ; My feet your images have trod ; With heart and voice I own One God That now and ever reigns. S. EULALIA. Nought is the Isis whom ye praise. The Phoehus of the golden rays, The Venus of the Cyprian lays, Maximian's self is nought j They nought, — the work of man's device, He nought, — who dares to sacrifice To that which hands have wrought. 8. Maximian, lord of countless Thrones, Client of stocks and slave of stones. May bend the head, may bow the knees, To all his senseless deities ; But why compel each generous breast That once for all hath Christ professed? Just judge ! mild chieftain ! to pursue The innocent and good and true ; So eager to torment their frame By sword and rack, by scourge and flame. And tempt their heavenward trust ! On to the torture ! Why delay ? Dissolve this tenement of clay : A thing so frail will soon decay, And dust return to dust : My body thou canst rack, 'tis true ; But then hast nothmg more to do." 9. Thus said the Saint : and as she spoke. The fury of the Praetor woke : LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. " On with her, Uctor ! Let her know That heavenly vengeance is not slow, And still the Caesar rules below. And still hath arms to strike the blow In us who guard his throne. — And yet one moment, maiden ! pause ; Regard thy countr^^'s broken laws, And even on destruction's brink On the bright joys and glory think That might have been thy own ; Think on the house that o'er thy grave Must weep the doom it could not save ; On them, the noble and the brave. The glories of thy race ; Look forward to thy heavy doom. In flower of youth, in beauty's bloom, Unwooed, unwedded, in the tomb To hide thy foul disgrace." 10. Or grant that love, with all the gold And trappings of his sway. Hath yet no charm thy heart to hold ; Grant that the lore they taught of old. On sect so boastful and so bold. Pass profitless away ; Thou need'st but look around, to know The engines that shall work thee woe : S. EULALIA. The sword, whose brightness thou shalt dim ; The beasts to rend thee Hmb from Hmb ; The fire that, when its fury ends. Shall leave few ashes for thy friends ; — This is the rebel's doom ! That doom to shun, how light a task ! To touch the salt is all we ask, And to the hallowed flames dispense The sacrificial frankincense, As custom bids, avoiding thence The torture and the tomb." 11. The holy Martyr scorned reply : But turning to the Altar nigh, She spurned the image of the god. On cake and thurible she trod. And mocked the tyrant's pride. Then hastened forth the torturers twain. And with accursed hooks amain They rent the Virgin's side ; And still, serene amidst her pain. Each gash Eulalia eyed. 12. I bear Thy marks upon me here ; Thy written characters are dear : They stamp Thy glory in my shame ; Each life-drop magnifies Thy name !" No tears she shed, she breathed no sigh. Triumph and joy were in her eye. LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Nor grief nor fear she knew ; And like some fountain, pure as light. The Martyr's blood welled fresh and bright Each sinking limb to dew. The parting trial lacked there still. To vex the tortured frame ; They tried, those ministers of ill, The agony of flame ; And taught by strange experience, knew How little torch or fire could do. 13. And, as the fresh attack she found. And other foes assail. The maiden's hair, that flowed unbound, Tvvixt her, and them that stood around. Opposed a seemly veil ; Uprose the flame on eddying spire. And lifted high its crest ; Eager for peace, she breathed the fire, ' And so she went to rest : Forth from her lips, most pure and white. There sprang a snowy dove. And shooting on its heavenward flight It sought the realms above ; So swift, so pure, so innocent. It was Eulalia's soul that went To seek its native firmament. The dwelling-place of Love. S. EULALTA. 14. The pile was quenched : the limhs, so late The sport of cruelty and hate. In painless quiet lay ; — A sound of triumph filled the sky, As to the Holy Place on high She bent her happy way. That portent strange the torturer saw ; And, struck with unaccustomed awe. His own ill deeds he fled : The lictor, with his godless crew. Bore not that miracle to view. But forth with terror sped. 15. It was the time when cold winds blow. And surly ^vinter reigns ; lie covered with a shroud of snow The Virgin's blest remains. What are the rites that man can try To prove the Martyr dear, To this, when He That rules the sky Commands the elements on high To grace their holy bier. Who, ere they laid the body by. Were His confessors here ? 16. To her that ran so well her race, Vettonia gives a resting place, — LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Where Ana, with poetic wave. The bulwarks fair deUghts to lave. And there her shrine, of marble bright. Greets from afar the travellers' sight ; And gleams, arrayed in noonday light. Serenely through the air. The stranger knows that temple well. And blithely will the peasant tell Whose holy dust is there. The roof is glorious to behold. With painted groin and vault of gold ; The floor in bright mosaick decked By skill of curious architect. Like fields of summer beauty, glows With wild flower fair, and fairer rose. 17. Go ! pluck the violet-flower to day. The golden crocus bring, — Our winter lacks not such array ; And frost and snow have fled away. To give us buds of spring. Maidens and youths, their foliage twine. To deck the Victor Maiden's shrine ! We in the midst, with other flowers. Will weave the Martyr's crown ; And this dactylic strain of ours Shall speak her high renown. S. EULALIA. 109 If its poor buds must soon decay, The festal wreath may serve to-day ! Thus in our annual wont, 'tis just To venerate her sacred dust. In God's abode, beneath Whose throne The Blessed Martyr found her own ; And she, well pleased by this our rite. Shall guard her people day and night ! NOTES. (1) Merida, anciently Emerita, a city of Spain, now almost ruined, on the Guadiana. Its see was transferred, in 1144, by Pope Calixtus II., to S. James of Compostella. The Acts of the Martyrdom of S. Eulalia are not authentic. I have, therefore, given an imitation of the Hymn of Prudentius, written in her honour. Had I been aware of the elegant translation of this same hymn, in a selection from the works of Prudentius, lately published by Messrs. Rivington, I should have contented myself with referring the reader to that. Prudentius was born at Saragossa about the year 348 ; he studied the law, and was governor of the province ; but at length, deter- mining to retire from the world, he made a voyage to Rome, and devoted the rest of his life to Christian poetry, being then about fifty-seven years of age. The year of his death is not known. S. Eulalia received her crown on the lOth of December, 304. Her precious remains were, in the eighth century, to secure them from the insults of the Saracens, removed to Oviedo, where they repose in a Chapel, which bears her name, attached to the Cathedral. It is not certain whether S. Eulalia of Barcelona, and S. Eulalia of Merida, are the same or different Martyrs. If the latter, they both suffered in nearly the same year, and under very similar circumstances. L VIRGIN AND MARTYR IN THE TENTH PERSECUTION. DEC. 13. A.D. 304. TT7E have already related the triumph of S. Agatha; come we now to tell how the Church of Sicily was increased and strengthened by her blood. During the time that the last persecution was vexing the Church, there dwelt in Syracuse a holy widow, named Eutychia, who, having long lost her earthly husband, fixed all her hopes and desires on the love of the heavenly Bridegroom, and the pos- session of that Country where they neither marry, nor are given in marriage. She had one daughter, named Lucia, and rightly so named; in that she was to follow, — though afar off, — her Blessed Lord, in being a light to lighten the Gentiles of her native land. At a very early age she renounced the intention of marriage, and resolved entirely to dedicate herself to God. This vow, however, she con- cealed from her mother ; and thereby became exposed S. LUCY. Ill to the importunities of a nobleman of Syracuse, who sought her to be his bride, and who, though a Pagan, found favour in the eyes of Eutychia. In process of time, perhaps as a punishment for this her worldliness, Eutychia fell into a sore dis- ease, and for four years she struggled against it. Like her in the Gospel, she spent her wealth upon many physicians, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. It happened that Lucy and her mother, when in attendance on the Christian Sacri- fice, heard for the Gospel this very history : — and the Saint, filled with the spirit of faith, took comfort. ''Be of good cheer," she said, " and believe that the intercessions of the faithful servants of the Lord, who, having suffered for His Name, now stand in His sight, avail much. Let us arise, and go to the tomb of S. Agatha : it may be that by her means we shall receive the benefit that we seek, even the restoration of your health.'' So they arose, and came to Catana. And at the tomb of the Holy Virgin, Eutychia and her daughter were constant in sui)pUcation : till, wearied out by bodily and mental fatigue, the latter slept. And while she slept, she had a glorious vision. She beheld S. Agatha in the company of the Blessed, and heard from her lips that Eutychia was made whole of the disease. And, even so, on waking, she found it to be. " And now, my mother," said the Christian maiden, " speak to me no more, I con- 112 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. jure you, of marriage. The servitude that should have been mine, had I been given to man, the corrupter of nature, let it also be mine when I give myself to Christ, the Restorer of me and of all things." Eutychia, not unmindful of the benefit she had received, complied with her more earnest-minded daughter's request. Farms and estates were valued for sale ; notice was given to the partiarii and con- ductores that their rents in kind and of money were to be paid to others. The fine herds of Sicilian oxen, and valuable flocks of clothed sheep, all were put up by Dolabella, the auctioneer ; the house plate, the ornaments, necklaces, bracelets, and ear-rings, the embroidered segmenta and precious silks, all were turned into money ; and daily out of their proceeds were the hungry fed, and the naked clothed, and the houseless lodged. Tidings of these things were soon brought to the ears of the nobleman by whom Lucia was sought ; and, full of indignation, not only at the intention of his destined bride (which was by this time no secret), but at the loss of the broad lands and hoarded trea- sures that he had hoped to enjoy, he went to the Proconsul Paschasius. " The august emperors," he said, are crushing the accursed sect of the Naza- renes from Persia to the pillars of Hercules ; every- where legates and prsetors, and officers, civil and military, are in arms against it. Sicily only, the first province that Rome possessed, is the last that these S. LUCY. 113 Chrestians^ pollute. Lucia, the richest maiden of Syrtt- cuse, is dissipating the possessions of her ancestors, among the wretched and the vile ; Lucia, my promised bride, dares to call herself the Bride of the Crucified.'* Then was the anger of Paschasius kindled; and he commanded the Virgin to do sacrifice to demons. " I have sacrificed already all that I had/' replied Lucia, " to my Lord and God ; and now, since I have nothing more that I can devote to Him, I desire to sacrifice myself to His Name. Do that which you think to be advantageous to your reli- gion ; I will do that which I know to be profitable to my salvation." You have bestowed your goods on your lovers,'* returned the Prsefect ; "you, a high-born maiden, have squandered them in infamy." I know," replied Lucia, " corruption neither of mind nor of body ; corrupters I have ever kept far from me." " And who are corrupters ? " demanded Paschasius. " Such as yourself," replied the maiden ; "for it is written, Evil communications corrupt good manners." " Words are well," answered the Proconsul, " till we come to strokes." ''Till, and after," answered Lucy; "the words of God can never cease." * Chrestians was a name sometimes given, by mistake, to Chris- tians : and seeing that it may be derived from a Greek word signify- ing goody they had no great objection to it. L 2 114 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. " And do you call yourself God ?" "I am the handmaiden of God/' said the Con- fessor ; " and therefore have spoken the words of God, — since it is written, It is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost That speaketh in you." We need not follow the patient Martyr through her trial of mocking and insult ; in which if, like S. Agnes and S. Agatha she suffered, like S. Agnes and S. Agatha she also triumphed. And if there seem to be a sameness in these narrations of temptation and victory, what is this but a proof that the way to Eternal Life is, and must be, one and the same ; for it is He Who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever ? But when, after a weary conflict, the Virgin was on the point of receiving her crown, Paschasius, the persecutor, was arrested by the relations of some whom he had previously unjustly condemned. The torturer went to capital punishment at Rome : the victim to everlasting glory in the heavenly Jeru- salem ; but not till she had received the Body and Blood of her Lord from the hands of a priest, who, hearing that the judge was arrested, ventured boldly to perform his office. The remains of the Saint long reposecf in Syra- cuse : they are now preserved in the church of S. Vincent, at Metz. The synod of Worcester for- bade women to labour on her festival : and her day regulates the Ember seasons of Advent. I I VIRGIN AND MARTYR ; AND HER COMPANIONS. A.D. 345. TT is uncertain at what time the Church was first planted in Persia. It is the general opinion of tlie early writers, that it had its rise from the hand of an Apostle ; and by the commencement of the second age, it had brought forth plentiful fruit. Still we meet with no particular account of its suffer- ings, or of its triumphs, till we find it struggling against the persecution of Sapor in the middle of the fourth century. And happier, far happier was it, in this its trial, than the Churches of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, then almost overwhelmed by Arian storms. The Persians were experiencing the fulness of His Grace, and staying themselves on the support of His Peace, Whose Godhead the hereticks actually or virtually denied. Simeon was then Archbishop of Ctesiphon and 116 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Seleucia ; and while the fury of the Jews and Magi was loosed against the priests and the temples of his province, he himself was loaded with irons, and led before the king. By the enraged monarch, on refu- sing to adore the sun, he was ordered to prison ; and even as he went from the palace, his words of sorrow, and of anger, were made effectual to touch the heart . of Usthazades, then an apostate from the faith of Christ, now reckoned among the Saints in glory. " If a long-tried friend/' said the penitent, ^' like Simeon, turns away from me because I have denied the faith, what must I expect when I stand before the judgment-seat of my God and his ?" It was on Maundy Thursday that, after deeply lamenting his fall, S. Usthazades received the Crown of Martyr- dom ; and on Good Friday, Simeon, after having witnessed the triumph of one hundred of his flock, was privileged to share the Passion of the Saviour Whom he had so long loved. One only of all that number, an aged priest, named Ananias, trembled at the sight of the dreadful preparations ; and he, per- haps, rather from bodily weakness, than mental fear. " Courage !" cried Priscus, the master of the royal works ; courage yet a little while ! Close thine eyes for a few moments, and they shall open on the Light of Heaven!" For this bold confession of Christ, he was summoned before the King; and his tongue being torn out by the roots, he suffered courageously in company with his daughter. S. PHERBUTHA, 117 Some time afterwards the Queen fell ill. It was ,0 be expected/^ said the Jews that had access to her ^ar : the sisters of Simeon have used poison, to ivenge their brother's death. These sisters were Pherbutha (or, as she is sometimes called, Tarbula), a Persian maiden of rare beauty, and a widow who, for :he love of Christ, had refused a second marriage. With them went a servant of S. Pherbutha, a maiden ike herself ; and all three rejoiced that they were lonoured to tread in the steps of him whom they lad so lately lost. ^' What madness is this ?" said Pherbutha. "What need of a false accusation to ;hed our blood ? We die like Christians ; we die for lim That is our Life. Our law commands, Let the )oisoner be put to death by the hand of his people ; md how can we be guilty then of so foul a crime 'It may be," replied Mauptes, the chief of the ♦lagi and one of the Judges, " that your law pro- ibits the action of which you are accused ; but avenge is stronger than obedience : and grief for our brother's death may have conquered your egard to your sacred writings." " And what harm ave ye done to my brother ?" inquired the maiden. What is there which we could wish to revenge ? jVue, your malice condemned him to death ; yet he |ow lives a truer life. You deprived him of dwelling mger among the joys of his and our country, and ha ow exults in the glory of a Heavenly Land." And^ fter saying this, she was conducted to prison. 118 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Thither, on the following morning, Mauptes sent Be mine," he said, " Pherbutha, and these trouble shall cease. If your law forbids you to worship th Sun, it does not prohibit your marriage with thos that do. As your judge, I must condemn you ; a your husband, I can shelter you." Now, Go] forbid," said Pherbutha ; I am already wedded t Christ. He That is without spot of sin can delive me from your evil and impure hands ; and in Hi strength, and for His sake, I am ready to die. Th way on which you think to send me will but lead m» to my beloved brother and Bishop, Simeon; am there shall I find plentiful consolation after all m; trouble." Two similar offers were similarly refusec by the Holy Virgin. Foiled in their hopes, and enraged by disappoint ment, the Judges made their report to the King They had examined the case, they said, with religious care, and the guilt of the prisoners was placed beyont a doubt. The Queen was suffering from the effects of poison ; Pherbutha and her companions had ad- ministered it. *^Even thus," said the King, "they shall receive my pardon, if they will, like their fathers, adore the Sun." But such a pardon was accepted as it de- served ; and the manner of the Martyrs' death was left to the wisdom, or the cruelty, of the Magi. " Thus it must be," said the ministers of Satan, "il the Queen seeks to recover her health ; the bodies ol S. PHERBUTHA. 119 ae poisoners must be cut in twain, and the poisoned lust pass between the pieces."" "Yet I can save ou, Pherbutha/' said Mauptes. "Agree but to my 3rms, and a life of pleasure is before you; refuse lem, and you shall experience the bitterest cup that eath can offer." "And 1/' returned the Martyr, desire nothing so heartily as death, that I may liter on the possession of everlasting Life." The Champions of Christ were led to the gate of le city, that in all things they might be like imto lim of Whom it is written. He suffered without Lie gate. For each were two posts driven into the round, the head being made fast to the one, the feet 0 the other. Thus they lay, stretched to their full mgth, till the executioner with a saw severed each 1 two. The mangled forms of the Martyrs were ttached on each side of a neighbouring street ; and etween them, in solemn procession, the wretched iueen was led. They, meanwhile, were welcomed y S. Simeon to the regions of Paradise, and left a ame behind them that was the support of future afferers in the same persecution. The Eastern Church celebrates them separately, on !ie 5th day of April ; the Western, conjointly with tie other Persian Martyrs, on the 22nd of the same lonth. Ofusitot&ium. VIRGIN, A.D. 41( TTITHERTO those of whom we have written "^"^ have either triumphed in the Martyr's death or, at least, witnessed the Martyr's confession. But now a new order of things arises upon us. Th Church, casting aside the garments of her distresj and her widowhood, was about to put on the beauti ful robes of her glory. Kings were her nursini fathers, and their Queens her nursing mothers Forsaken and hated she had indeed been ; now shj was to become an eternal excellency, a joy of man; generations. In the Conquest of the Empire b; Constantine, she also triumphed ; and now she hat nothing to fear from enemies without ; her dangei^ lay from hereticks within. As yet, however, she had not authorized thosj appliances and means of devotion, which, in afte ages, were her glory and her privilege. Monasterie S. EUSTOCHITJM. 121 of men she indeed had long possessed; and the ascetics of ^Egypt, hj general consent, were the bravest soldiers in this hard warfare with the flesh. But for women there were yet no retreats from the world. At Rome, the whirlpool of dissipation, they were first needed ; and at Rome the first approach to them was made. Christian widows, and Christian maidens, mixing, in a certain sort, with the world, were yet bound by the vow of celibacy, and in heart and desire lived the future life of the cloister. Let us, at this time, sketch the life of one of these holy virgins. Eustochium, known also by the name of Julia, was born in Rome about the year 368. The Church was still struggling against Arianism ; for Valen- tinian and Valens were both, though not in an equal degree, favourers of this accursed heresy. S. Atha- nasius, worn out with his battles for the Truth, still lived unharmed ; the brightest star in the glorious constellation of doctors that then illuminated the Church. S. Hilary of Poictiers was yet upon earth ; the eye of his mind was not dim, nor the natural force of his marvellous metaphysical abilities abated. S. Basil, the rock on which Asiatic heresy dashed itself in pieces, carried on his enterprises of holy valour ; one wish only could be formed for him, that his body might prosper and be in health even as his soul prospered, S. Ephrem, that most humble, most rapt, Doctor of Syria,~S, Pruden- M 122 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. tins, the sweet Psalmist of the West, — S. Gregory Nazianzen, with his flowing and almost redundant eloquence,— S. Cyril, of Jerusalem, the clear, the: concise, the plainspoken, — all these, and many others, gave light to the spreading Church, one star nevertheless dilfering from another star in glory. And S. Ambrose, S. Jerome, and S. Augustine, brighter luminaries still, were on the point of ap- pearing. The period embraced by the earthly life of S. Eustochium is the most glorious in the second, or peaceful, era of the Primitive Church. Her father Toxotius was of the famous race of the Julii. They boasted to have their origin from j^lneas ; and had numbered some of the most illus- trious of the sons of Rome amongst their families. Her mother Paula was descended from the Scipios and the Gracchi ; and, through another channel, claimed descent from Agamemnon. This we learn from S. Jerome. This," says that Father, "we mention, not because there is any thing great in possessing such honours, but because the contemning them is truly admirable. Men of the world look up to those that are so endowed ; we praise such as for the Saviour's Love despise such endowments." The marriage of S. Paula with Toxotius was blessed by five children. The two eldest, Blesilla and Paulina, were married into noble families ; Eustochium was the third ; the fourth, Ruifina, died young ; and Toxotius, the only son, was the youngest. S. EUSTOCHIUM. 123 The education of EustocMum was the best that Rome could then afford ; for her father, a polished gentleman of the times, would not neglect the culti- vation of the minds of his children. At his death, she had attained her thirteenth year ; and thence- forward a new epoch seems to have commenced in her life. Her mother was blessed with the ac- quaintance of S. Marcella, a widow lady not more eminent for wealth and birth than for devotion. "Her friendship,'' says S. Jerome, "was enjoyed by the venerable Paula ; Eustochium, the glory of virgi- nity, was brought up in her closet ; so that the character of the preceptress may easily be guessed from that of the disciple." Eustochium was about fifteen years of age, when S. Jerome came to Rome. Of all the Doctors of the Church, that Father laid the greatest stress on the superiority of the single, to the married, life ; insomuch that he was, at one time, thought, in this respect, to tremble on the verge of heresy, by hold- ing marriage to be a necessary evil, instead of a blessed estate. What effect his fervid exhortations must have had on the mind of one like his gentle pupil Eustochium, it is easy to conceive. She soon, it appears, took the vow of virginity, and has the honour of being one of the first Roman ladies that did so. This determination met with the approval of her mother, but was the cause of a violent outcry among the patricians of Rome ; and was one reason among 124 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. others that S. Jerome was obliged to leave the city. Nor did the storm cease with his absence. Salute Paula and Eustochium/' says he in one of his letters ; " mine in Christ, whether the world will or not." In particular, Prsetextata, the aunt, by marriage, of the Virgin, exerted her efforts at the desire of her husband Hymetius, to change the re- solution of Eustochium. Inviting her to their house, they then, it would seem, insisted on her re-assuming that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, and of putting on of apparel, which the Bride of Christ had laid aside. S. Jerome informs us that a severe punishment befell this worldly-minded woman. About this time Eustochium had the grief of losing her sister Blesilla. She left no children ; and the family were, of course, the more anxious for the marriage of Eustochium herself, that the name and race might be preserved. S. Jerome, writing to S. Paula on this occasion, exhorts her to moderate her excessive grief, lest her daughter's tender age should suffer in consequence. " Have compassion," he writes, " if not on yourself, at least on your Eustochium, yet in the helplessness of childhood, I might almost say, infancy. The devil is now exhibiting his malice ; and because he beholds one of your chil- dren triumphing," — for Blesilla, it seems, had died the death of the righteous, — and thus feels him- self bruised and vanquished, he seeks to obtain that S. EUSTOCHIUM. 125 j victory in her wlio remains^ which he has lost in her iwlio is gone hefore." Shortly after this, S. Jerome addressed his cele- Ibrated Epistle to Eustochium, — an Epistle, than ! which perhaps no extant document more forcibly shews the zeal and love of the Early Church. If we keep in mind to whom it was addressed, a girl of sixteen, and then think on the arduous nature of the counsels which the Father brings forward for her use, we may judge what was then thought prac- ticable in the way of Christian Life. He begins vdth a passage of Scripture. " Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear : forget also thine own people, and thy father's house : so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty." " I write thus, lady," he says, " for by that title I ought to address the Bride of my Lord, that as soon as you begin to read, you may see that I have no intention of enter- ing on the praise of Virginity, a state which you have already approved as the holiest, and under- taken ; but to make you understand how needful it is, on your departure from Sodom, to keep the ex- ample of Lot's wife as a fearful warning before your eyes. This paper contains no flattery; a flatterer is but a smooth-spoken enemy." He proceeds to warn her against pride, and the being pufi'ed up with the grace which she had already received. " Fear, Qot arrogance, should be the consequence of your determination. You are, as it were, journeying M 2 126 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. onwards, laden with gold ; there is need of vigilance against the attacks of robbers. This life is th( stadium for men ; contend we here, that elsewhere w( may be crowned. No one can travel securely amonj serpents and scorpions. We are surrounded witl mighty troops of foes ; every place is full of enemies The flesh frail in itself, and so soon about to be turnec into dust, fights single-handed against a host." Hence he proceeds to dwell on the use and neces- sity of fasting ; not as being in itself, so far as th( pain arising therefrom simply considered, acceptable to God, but because it is the great and only safe- guard of the soul. He next dwells on the choice oJ society. Let such be your companions," — so h( writes, — " as are known for their rigid abstinence, and pallid coutitenances ; as can say feelingly, " ] desire to depart, and to be with Christ." Be sub- ject to your parent and relations; imitate youi Heavenly Spouse in this respect. Go rarely abroad Associate with the Martyrs," — that is, with then Acts or writings, — " in your chamber. You will nevei be at a loss for a reason to go out, if you always gc out when there appears to be a reason for it." He goes on to relate the advantages of a holy solitude. " We are easily," says he, "led away by our corrupt nature. We feel a kind of good will towards our flatterers ; and though we may answer their compliments with a profession of un worthiness, and their remarks may send the blushes to our face, S. EUSTOCHIUM. 127 we feel nevertheless a secret pleasure in hearing our own praises. The Bride of Christ is the Ark of the Covenant, overlaid within and without with gold. As in that there was nothing except the Tables of the hsiw, so let there be nothing of worldly thoughts and affections in your heart. Let none hinder you from the accomplishment of your holy resolves, neither mother, nor sister, nor relation : the Lord hath need of you." * * * "Therefore/' he con- tinues, further on, " my Eustochium, daughter, lady, fellow-servant, (for different are the titles of age, merit, religion, love,) hear the words of Isaiah : ^ Come, My people, enter thou into thy chamber, and shut thy doors about thee : hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.' " After speaking of the danger of ostentatious fast- ing, he turns to the necessity of prayer. Although the Apostle teaches us to pray without ceasing, and the very sleep of the Saints is prayer, we ought to have settled hours marked out for our devotion : so that, if we are unconsciously detained too long on any occupation, the very time may warn us of our duty. Every one knows of tierce, sexts, nones, matins, and evensong." It is curious, by the way, here, to observe the gradual development of the Canonical Hours : S. Jerome takes no notice of Compline, — the commendation of ourselves to God for the night, — and by Matins means that which the later Church 128 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. called Prime ; the devotion of the first hour of the day. Matins, properly speaking, consisting of the three nocturns and lauds, were not yet formally ordained. " Never take food till prayer has pre- ceded the meal ; never arise from table, without giving thanks to the Creator. We should rise twice or thrice in the night ; we should meditate on such passages of Scripture as we have by heart. When you go from your lodging, let prayer arm you ; when you come in from a walk, prayer should precede rest ; let not the body be refreshed before the mind hath been fed. Before every time of going forth, let the hand make the Lord's Cross." And lastly, S. Jerome, knowing the difficulty of the precepts that he had given, seeks to animate his daughter to their accomplishment. "The things that I have recommended will seem hard to her, that loves not Christ. But she who accounts all the pomp of this world but dung, and everything under the sun vanity, that she may win Christ, — who, together with her Lord, is dead, and together with Him risen, and who hath crucified the Flesh with its affections and lusts, wil] freely say, "Who will separate us from the love of God ?" Reminding her that "even Christ pleased not Himself and that all Saints have, through much tribulation, entered into the kingdom of God, — " Is it not," he asks, '•'better for a short time to struggle, to bear the camp- stake, to grow weary under the mail, to stand S. EUSTOCHIUM. 129 to our arms, and after that to rejoice as victors, than from impatience of one hour's fatigue to be slaves for ever ? Nothing is hard to them that love ; no labour is difficult to them that desire." And he i refers to the example of Jacob, to whom the seven years that he served for Rachel seemed but a few days, for the love that he had to her. Let us," he concludes, "love Christ, and ever seek His em- braces, and all things which are long" — that is, simply long, not eternal — "will seem short, and, wounded by the arrows of His love, shall we exclaim every moment. Woe is me ! that I am constrained to dwell in Mesech, and to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar !" It is a beautiful picture, — the Doctor of Christ's Church, laying aside his learned commentaries or translations, and addressing his spiritual daughter in words of affection like these ! And he still continued to watch over her. In another letter, addressed to S. Paula, after desiring to be remembered to Eustochium, he proceeds, "For the Church that is in your house I dread all things, even those in which there is no danger, lest while tlic good-man is sleeping the enemy should come and sow tares. No one, while a hostile army is besieg- ing him, can be safe. No one, as blessed Cyprian says, is sufficiently secure while there is a possibility of danger." In the following year we find a playful letter. 130 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. written by S. Jerome, on the receipt, as a present foi S. Peter's Day (June 29, 385), of a bracelet, a pair of carved doves, a box of preserved cherries, and one or two other gifts. "Take care," he writes, "lest you lose the ornaments of your good works, which are the true bracelets of your arms ; take care, lest it be said of you as it was of Ephraim by Hosea, She is like a silly dove." A very short time after the receipt of this letter S. Paula determined to visit Palestine, where it is to be remembered S. Jerome was then living. They sailed in the month of August or September, and arrived safely in Cyprus. Here they were well received by S. Epiphanius, a Bishop of much renown in the Church, and the perpetual enemy of every species of hereticks : unhappy only in this, that in his later days hastiness of temper led him into great error in his conduct with respect to S. Chrysostom. By him the travellers were detained ten days ; and in that time visited the principal monasteries of the island ; to the support of which S. Paula liberally contributed. Hence they came to Seleucia, the port of Antioch, and so to that city itself, where they were warmly welcomed by Paulinus, the Bishop, with whom they had had some acquaintance in Rome. It was now the middle of winter ; but neither the rigour of the season, nor the hospitality of the Prelate, could detain the wanderers from the completion of their S. EUSTOCHIUM. 131 ! pilgrimage. Mounted on no better beasts of burden I than two asses, they set forward for Jerusalem. Hither the fame of their piety and zeal had preceded them ; and the Proconsul had given orders that a government house should be set apart for their reception. But S. Paula refused so sumptuous a lodging, thinking it unmeet thus to take up her ftbode in places hallowed by Him Who, when He came to deliver man, had no better lodging than the manger : she chose a humble cell in Jerusalem. And From thence she visited the principal scenes of our Lord's Life and Passion. After a journey into /E2:ypt, the mother and the daughter fixed their ibode at Bethlehem — partly on account of the sanc- tity of the place, partly for the purpose of being near S. Jerome. To his expositions of the Scripture they istened unweariedly. And how great a privilege was hat discipleship ! For if such as we may venture ni a comparison among the Four Doctors of the ^Vcstern Church, S. Jerome excelled in his exposi- ions, as S. Augustine did in his sermons, and S. Vmbrose in what may be called his biographical reatises. We find a letter among those of this Father, and probably composed by him, though iddressed to Marcella in the name of Paula and Eustochium. In this they earnestly invite their friend to leave Rome for Palestine, and beautifully lescribe the holy solitude of Bethlehem. In the village of Christ, all is country ; and scarcely a 132 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. sound to be heard excepting Psalms. Wherever yo' • go, the labourer, while following the plough, chant \ Alleluia. The toiling reaper has a spare moment fo Psalms ; and the vine-dresser, while busily plyin? j his curved pruning-hook, chants something of Kin^ ] David's. These are the songs of this province j these — you often have heard of such —our amator^Jj eclogues, these the shepherd's whistle ; these, th« instruments of husbandry., O when," the lette proceeds, " will the time come that a panting mes senger shall bring the tidings : our Marcella has dis embarked on the coast of Palestine ! and the choirs o monks and troops of virgins shall re-echo the sound' Shall it ever, ever come to pass? Shall we to gether enter into the cave where the Saviour lay and weep with our sister, our mother, over th Lord's Sepulchre, and kiss the wood of the Cross and, on Mount Olivet, ascend in heart and though with our ascending Lord ? And then, with Chris' for our companion, when we shall have visited Sil and Bethel, and the other places wherein churche have been erected to serve, as it were, for trophies o the Lord's victory, and shall have returned to ou cell, we will sing together unceasingly — we wil weep perseveringly — we will pray indesinently : and wounded with the dart of the Saviour's love, wil say together, I have found Him Whom my sou loveth ; I will hold Him, and not let Him go." Do not these pictures of the then country life o S. EUSTOCHIUM. 133 Bethlehem almost realize the days when the wolf should dwell with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid, and nothing hurt or destroy on God's Holy Mountain? But they were insufficient to tempt S. Marcella from Rome. There she led her earthly life ; and thence she departed to a more blessed existence. This letter must have been written during the earlier part of S. Paula's stay at Bethlehem ; for, with her daughter and a few other companions (some of whom had probably journeyed with them from Rome, some subsequently sought their society), she dwelt three years in the cell of which the letter that I have just quoted speaks, and which S. Jerome dsewhere calls "an inconvenient little resting-place." But then it appears to have been suggested, that the benefit of S. Paula's example and teaching should not be confined to so narrow a circle. She divided," [^ays the Father, '^a number of Virgins, whom she i lad assembled in different countries, into three bands md monasteries. There were among these, maidens )f the highest rank, as well as of the middle and in- ferior station ; and they were so divided that, though separated for work and at meal-time, they were oined in psalmody and prayer. At morning, at ierce, sexts, nones, vespers, midnight, they sang the Psalter through in order." Where we may observe hat noiv all the canonical hours are mentioned ex- cept compline, though matins and lauds were not yet N 134 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. fully developed, and were probably celebrated at an earlier hour than afterwards, when lauds were to hail the dawning day. "Every sister was expected to have the Psalms by heart, and to commit to memorv daily some portion of the Scriptures. On the Lord's Day only they went to the church ; at the side of which they dwelt. Each band followed its own mo- ther ; and returning thence in a similar manner, they set about the work distributed among them, and made garments either for themselves or for others." A curious instance, by the way, of the different manner in which, at different times, and by persons equally perhaps eminent for sanctity, the Sunday has been observed.* "Those sisters who were of higher rank were not permitted to have any companion from their own home, lest, mindful of former conversa- tion, she should renew by her words the errors of wayward youth." S. Jerome's letters of this date abound in allusions to his two friends. He mentions them to Pamma- chius, who had married Paulina, the sister of Eusto- chium ; to Furia, a young and noble widow, and a relation of the family ; and more especially to Lseta, the wife of the younger Toxotius, whom he exhorts to place her young daughter, Paula, under the care of her grandmother and her aunt. * stilting, indeed, will have it that this does not refer to the Sun- day, though without giving any reason for his assertion, and in direct opposition to S. Jerome's words. S. EUSTOCHIUM. 135 The Father inscribed several of his Commentaries to these holy women ; more especially those on Philemon, the Galatians, the Ephesians, and Titus. In the preface to the latter, we find a curious pas- sage . Speaking of the text. When I shall send i Artemas unto thee, or Tychicus, be diligent to come anto me to Nicopolis, for I have determined there to winter, he says, " The Apostle then is writing, O Paula and Eustochium, of that Nicopolis which, situated on the coast of iVctium, includes the greatest part of your property." In his Translation of the Hebrew ScriptureSj, which forms the greater part of the Vulgate, S. Jerome inscribes more than one book to the same friends (who understood Hebrew as well as Greek) ; as also his Commentaries on the Prophets. And thus this happy society went on from year to year, laily advancing towards perfection, and becoming more meet for the inheritance of the Saints in light. In the summer of 403, S. Paula's strength began to decline. "Now," says S.Jerome, "the dutiful affection of Eustochium that had always been mani- fested to her mother became more publicly known. She would sit by her bed, hold the fan, support the head of the sufferer, place the pillow under her, chafe her hands, make her bed, warm the water that she used, undertake all the offices of a maid-servant, and account whatever was done by another as subtracted from her own privilege." But these 136 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. watchings, and the prayers by which they were accompanied, were in vain ; S. Paula slept in the Lord on the 26th of January, 404 ; and S. Jerome was so much affected by his loss, that, as he telh Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria and the uncle oi S. Cyril, he was unable for some time to apply him- self to any theological work. Eustochium also sor- rowed, but not as one without hope ; and conceiving that the truest way of shewing her love to hei mother was the not suifering the Monastery that had occupied so much of her attention and time to fal to the ground, she herself, now in the thirty-seventli year of her age, undertook its management. Anc now the rule of S. Pachomius was adopted, which S Jerome translated into Latin, for the sake of th( sisterhood. And he also began to dedicate to S, Eustochium alone the Commentaries which, hac S. Paula been living in the flesh, would have beer inscribed to her also ; among them, those on Ezekiel Eustochium had the pleasure of educating th( young Paula, her brother's child, and in seeing that she grew up worthily of a family of Saints. And ii would appear that by letter they became known t( S. Augustine, who seems to have sent them ai epistle of exhortation, which has unhappily perished But lest the life of this servant of Christ shoulc seem a season of perpetual sunshine, it pleased Goi that the followers of the heretic Pelagius, who taught that man's free-will was sufficient for his salvatior S. EtJSTOCHIUM. 137 without the assistance of the grace of God^ having been condemned at the Council of DiospoHs, or Lydda^ turned their fury against S. Jerome and his followers, and burnt the monastery of Eustochium. She, by the hand of S. Jerome, complained to S. Innocent I., who then filled the Roman chair ; and he wrote three letters on the subject. In one to John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was supposed to be somewhat inclined to Pelagianism, the Pope says. Those most generous and holy Virgins, Eustochium and Paula, have deplored the perpetration by the devil of the devastation, the slaughter," — a deacon had been killed — " the burning, the full daring of extreme madness : they have been silent as to the name of the man, and the cause of the action." It is to be wished that we were in possession of more particulars as to Eustochium' s share in these events. It is certain that she suffered much ; but it would appear that she also returned to the Monastery after a short absence, for from Palladius we find her at a later period presiding over fifty Virgins in it. We should probably have been better informed of these circumstances had not many letters of S. Jerome perished in the conflagration of the Monastery. We know nothing more of this Holy Virgin, except the time of her departure. It probably hap- pened on September 28, 419, and is mentioned in j^^the last letter that S. Jerome ever wrote. Blessed s that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so watchins:! ^^^^^^^ 'HE kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of the Lord." Such was the glorious vision of S. John : and lo ! in a measure it is fulfilled already. We have not now to speak of the scourge, the rack, the wild beasts — nay, nor of the cloister, and the midnight vigil and daily fast. The daughter of a Caesar, an Empress of the luxurious city of Constantinople, is not only the true child of Holy Church, but is numbered among her Saints. Our eyes, so long accustomed to the obscurity of the prison or the catacomb, may well be almost dazzled with the excess of worldly glory that now bursts upon them. But go we on, nevertheless ; we shall find, O rare miracle of Grace ! — no less true a servant of the Lord, in purple and fine linen, than those whom we have hitherto contemplated in the arena, or at the scaifold. VIRGIN AND EMPRESS. A.D. 453» S. PULCHERIA. 139 ^lia Pulcberia, the daughter of Arcadius by his Empress Eudoxia, and granddaughter of Theodosius, was born at Constantmople about the year 396. Of three sisters, she was the eldest ; and she had one brother, Theodosius II., who afterwards enjoyed the Eastern purple. At the death of her father she was only in the thirteenth year of her age, and shortly afterwards she took the vow of perpetual virginity. In confirmation of this solemn engage- ment, she presented an altar of rare value to the Patriarchal Church of Constantinople ; it was enriched with gold and precious stones, and was, as an inscription which it bore testified, intended as a memorial of her own vow, and as an offering for her brother's happy reign. In the sixteenth year of her age, she assumed virtually, if not formally, the guardianship of this young Prince, and thencefor- ward began to administer the affairs of the Eastern empire —affairs requiring the more discretion, in that state relations with Persia, hitherto on the most amicable footing, now began to wear a somewhat different aspect. At the age of eighteen she was solemnly proclaimed Augusta ; and during her bro- ther's minority, nominally, as well as really, mistress of the East. The ecclesiastical historian, Sozomen, gives a high character of her talents for government. Her counsels, says he, were judicious ; her execution of those counsels rapid. She spoke well and wrote elegantly in both Greek and Latin. She was careful to attribute the merits of her successes to her brother. 140 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. She shewed her wisdom by the selection of com- petent masters for such parts of the Emperor's education as did not fall within her own province — for his instruction in arms, horsemanship, and litera- ture. But his moral cultivation and discipline she retained in her own hands : more especially she took care that his religious instruction was such as it ought to be ; and in an age of many new heresies, she was watchful that he should be early imbued with the principles of the One True Faith. The young Prince was not blessed with a strong mind ; but the careful education he had received was calcu- lated to make him a good, if it could not make him a great, emiperor. Arcadia and Maria, her younger sisters, were also educated by S. Pulcheria. And as she was probably more unfettered in her arrangements with respect to them than with reference to Theodosius, the results of her piety and prudence were still more observable. The same historian tells us that they were instant in devotion night and day ; that their fare was of the commonest kind ; that they employed every spare moment in work or in some other domestic labour ; and, above all things, avoided every species of idleness^ Thus the Augustus and his sister formed but one happy family ; the sycophants of an eastern court were not permitted to intrude ; and Theodosius, en- dued with an easy and forgiving temper, found the crown sit Hghtly upon his head. S. Pulcheria shewed her wisdom by providing for S. PULCHERIA. 141 the Emperor's marriage at a very early age. The common story respecting this union is that adopted by our own Massinger in his ''Emperor of the East" : — That Athenais;, the daughter of Leontius, or Hera- clitus, a Pagan philosopher, and herself a Pagan, became a suitor to Theodosius, against the injustice of her brothers, who deprived her of what her father had left to her by will ; that the Emperor was touched by her beauty and talents, and sought to make her his wife ; that the heathen maiden received baptism at the hands of the Patriarch Atticus, and with the full consent of Pulcheria was advanced by the title of Eudocia to the purple. So strange a story, though supported by the authority of Zonaras and the Alexandrian Chronicle, natu- rally leads one to suspect that some circumstances must have been omitted in the account as it has reached us, which, while they would detract from the marvellousness, would also lessen the apparent imprudence, of the choice. Hitherto the cares of S. Pulcheria had been con- fined to an empire ; they were now to be bestowed on a subject in which the welfare of the whole Church was involved. Nestorius, Patriarch of Constanti- nople, a man without much theological learning, and still more, it is to be feared, without that holiness of heart apart from which a knowledge of Divinity is of little avail, was nevertheless, — one might perhaps say, on that very account, — one of the most popular 142 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. preachers of his day ; his discourses, of which suf- ficient specimens have been preserved to ns, were shallow, but brilliant ; and he seems to have aimed at an appearance of novelty, that he might thereby acquire a reputation for originality. Among other things, he taught that the Blessed Virgin had no title to the claim of Mother of God : Mother of. Christ, said he, let her, if you will, be called: that is, Mother of His Human Nature : for how could she be the parent of That Which was from all eternity with the Father? Now the Church had not yet defined this matter. Both the expressions in question had been used by her doctors ; and it might at first sight appear rather a strife about words than a dispute concerning the most fundamental article of the Christian Faith. But S. Cyril, who then was Patriarch of Alexandria, saw the matter in its true light ; and from the earliest moment proclaimed himself the deadly enemy of the new doctrine. Seeming to be most opposed to Arianism, it in fact, as he perceived, was but a covert^ and therefore more dangerous, form of that heresy ; for if Christ were really and truly God, if He united the Divine and Human Natures in One Person, then His Mother was the Mother of God ; then God was born, God died, God took upon Himself all our infirmities, sin only except. Cyril therefore propounded twelve anathemas which, at first objected to by some of the orthodox, have, by their S. PULCHERIA. 143 subsequent adoption in an (Ecumenical Council, — a Council, that is, of the whole world,— become part of the teaching of Christ's Infallible Church. A long, and too often angry, correspondence en- sued between Nestorius and S. Cyril, between S. Cyril and S. Celestine of Rome, between the latter and the Patriarch of Constantinople. Theodosius was in the beginning inclined to the teaching of Nestorius; S. Pulcheria, from the very first, seems to have discerned its heretical nature. And we jhave two treatises addressed to her by S. Cyril, as well as to her sisters, in which he explains the teaching of the Church on the subject in question. The Bishops and Doctors of the Church came together at Ephesus to consult of this matter. It was a scene of sad violence and confusion ; two bodies were speedily formed, the one under the pre- sidency of S. Cyril, the other under that of the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch ; and each professed to be the true (Ecumenical Council, and leclared its rival worthy of an anathema. For some time it seemed doubtful which course the Court of Constantinople would take ; and, humanly speak- ing, it was principally owing to the exertions of Pulcheria, and her influence over her brother, that :he truth finally prevailed. Nestorius was con- iemned and deposed ; though his heresy, and the accession of Bishops derived from him, continues n the East to this day. And alas ! here in England 144 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the same accursed doctrine is too often publickly preached^ and no man gainsays it. The Council of Ephesus, the third (Ecumenical Council, was held in A. D. 431 ; when Pulcheria had attained the thirty- sixth year of her age. It appears that Theodosius, the easiness of whose temper we have already remarked, was in the habit of saving himself trouble in examining petitions, by signing them unread. Pulcheria endeavoured to impress on him the folly and the sin of this prac- tice ; but in vain. The means which she took prac- tically to convince him of its evil, are so admirably related by Massinger, in the drama to which we have already referred, that we shall only very briefly relate her contrivance in this place. She presented a petition, which the Emperor, according to his wont, signed, in token of approval, unread. He was passionately attached to Eudocia, and was therefore transported with indignation on hearing that his sister had invited her to her palace, and had there arrested her. But Pulcheria shewed him his own deed, in which he consigned to her Eudocia to have and to hold as a bondslave. Theodosius had the good sense to acknowledge and to amend his fault. But Eudocia, it seems, could not so easily forgive. And urged on by the flatteries of the eunuch Chry- saphius, she gradually ahenated the mind of the Emperor from his sister. And a religious motive was also at work. Another heresy, the opposite of S. PULCHERIA. 145 that of Nestorius, was on the point of breaking out. A.S the latter attributed Two Persons, so the former ienied Two Natures, to the Saviour ; a heresy by JO much the more dangerous, by how much it seemed to derive more weight from the very anathe- nas of Ephesus. S, Flavian, Patriarch of Constan- inople, was in its earlier stages, till he fell in defence of >he truth, its great opposer ; and Chrysaphius hoped :hat, by banishing the Augusta, he should be able to ruin the Patriarch. Pulcheria thought it more prudent to yield to the storm, and to retire from Constantinople. This ap- pears to have taken place about the year 447, and at Hebdomus she passed more than two years in retreat. In the mean time great ills had come on the Church. A. Council had been summoned at Ephesus, to de- termine the question of One or Two Natures in the Person of the Saviour. But the force which over- ruled its decisions, the tyrannical and overbearing conduct of Dioscorus, the unworthy successor ot S. Cyril, the fraudulent manner in which the sub- scription of the Bishops was obtained, the intrusion of the military, and the intervention of the civil power, have branded it with the title of the Ephesi- mm latrocinium, — the Ephesian meeting of robbers. Heresy, in spite of the opposition of the legates of S. Leo, Bishop of Rome, who had addressed a marvellously clear statement of the Church's teach- ing to S. Flavian, for a while triumphed. o 146 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. In the mean time Eudoeia, by a just punishment, had incurred the Emperor's displeasure ; and on hei disgrace and banishment, Pulcheria was recalled. S. Leo seems to have placed his chief reliance, under God, for the upholding of the Catholick Truth, in the Eastern Augusta. He had already addressed a letter to her, which his legates had been forbidden to deliver ; and he now again wrote, urging her to| procure the convocation of an (Ecumenical Council in Italy. Galla Placidia, the mother of the Emperor Valentinian III., wrote to the same effect ; and Pul- cheria, in return, promised to do what she could. Her letter has not come down to us ; but we possess! S. Leo's reply. It begins thus : "Leo Bishop to Pulcheria Augusta. The letters of your piety have caused me greatly to rejoice and exult in the Lord ; by which it is evidently shewn how dear you hold the Cathohck Faith, and how much you detest the errors of hereticks. Heresy is now indeed impious, and opposed to the Truth of the Gospel ; it seeks not to injure some portion of the Faith, but to subvert the very foundations of the Christian Rehgion. It denies that the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father took the flesh of our nature from the womb of the Blessed Virgin-Mother ; it threatens them with damnation, who could not be separated by any teaching of error from the Evan- gelical and Apostohck Faith, and pretends in vain to hold the Creed of the Nicene Synod, from whence, S. PULCHERIA. 147 tnost glorious Augusta, it has manifestly receded far." He then proceeds to implore her assistance, md commits the event to God. The letter hears late March 17, 450. Pulcheria found, on her return to court, that rheodosius was strongly prejudiced in favour of the Eutychians ; for so, from their founder, was the new ject called. She endeavoured, and apparently with mccess, to open his eyes to their errors ; and another mhject of importance also engaged her attention, inatolius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, had been jonsecrated by the Eutychian faction ; but had ifterwards embraced the Catholick Faith. It ap- pears, however, that S. Leo still naturally regarded lim with mistrust ; and Pulcheria prevailed on the Patriarch to address the Pope in terms calculated to •emove the misunderstanding that existed between hem, and to restore Communion to the two Churches. S. Leo shewed himself abundantly wil- ing to acquiesce in the proposal, and required only hat Anatolius should signify his consent, on the one land, to S. Cyril's twelve anathemas ; on the other, .0 his own letter to S. Flavian ; and to secure this 3oint he despatched legates to Constantinople. At this critical juncture of aifairs, Theodosius went from his earthly empire to render account of lis doings to the King of Kings; and thus the Durdensome weight of royalty devolved on S. Pul- cheria. Her first care was to cut off the prime 148 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. mover of the evils that had lately distracted the Court ; and she gave orders for the death of Chrysaphius. This was before the decease of the Em- peror was puhlickly known ; and, while it remained yet a secret, she summoned Marcian, a man of tried valour, and no less capable of civil than of military command, into her presence. She told him that she neither felt capable, nor willing, to incur unassisted the responsibility that had just devolved on her ; that she was anxious to find some one who would sliare it with her ; and that, if he would pledge his honour to respect her vow of celibacy, she would raise him to the Imperial Purple, under the nominal title of her husband. Marcian accepted the conditions. The Augusta proposed him to the election of the Senate ; and, in the month of August, he was crowned Emperor. The Court was not long in giving clear evidence of its principles ; the body of S. Flavian was translated, with great pomp, to Con- stantinople, and a Council held in that city, in which Anatolius and others were received into Communion with Rome. S. Pulcheria, in relating these events to the Bishop of Rome, requested, in a letter which is still extant, his acquiescence in the convocation of an Universal Council. Leo, however, while he gave the Empress all credit for the best intentions, was now willing that the (Ecumenical Synod should be deferred ; partly, perhaps, because he was less aware than she S. PULCHERIA. 149 was of the unsettled state of the Eastern Bishops ; i partly because he was better acquainted with the ! devastations of Attila in the West, and the con- ! sequent difficulty that his own Prelates would find in leaving their flocks. At length, after lengthened correspondence, and much delay, the Council was convoked at the ever famous Nicaea for the first day af September. There, accordingly, a large number of Bishops met; but it being thought desirable that the Emperor and Empress should be present, and the disturbed state of the government not then permitting Marcian to leave Constantinople, the Synod was transferred to Chalcedon, a town on the oppo- site side of the strait, and there, in the church of S. Euphemia, was opened on the 8th of October 4.D. 451. Dioscorus of Alexandria was here de- posed, — although his heresy, and the succession of Bishops derived from him, flourish in ^gypt to this lay. Six hundred and thirty fathers, — for the Council of Chalcedon can boast a greater number of Bishops than any other on record, — drew up a con- I'ession of faith, and testified their gratitude to S. Palcheria, not only by their synodal letters, but by their acclamations when, in the sixth session, the Empress herself was present. The entertainment of the departing Bishops, and their final dismissal, must, indeed, have been a labour of love to this good Princess. "We rejoice," says S. Leo, "ineffably with your Piety, that by the o 2 150 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. exertions of your Clemency, holy and approved of God, the Catholick Faith hath been defended against hereticks, and peace restored to the Universal Church. And we render thanks to the loving kindness of Almighty God that, those except, who loved dark- ness rather than light. He hath permitted none to he deprived of Evangelical Truth ; so that, the mist of error being swept away, most pure light should arise on the heads of all." — And, indeed, if we con- sider the blessedness of being the means, under God, of bringing one soul that is in error to a knowledge of the truth, what must have been the exultation of her, who was employed by Providence to suggest, and to bring to a happy close, the great Council of Chalcedon ? to procure the ratification by the infallible seal of the Church, of a part of the very Truth of God, — the promulgation of a decree which, to the end of time, should bind millions and millions of yet unborn sons of Holy Church ? But as no earthly joy is exempt from some touch of grief, the rising jealousy between Rome and Con- stantinople gave birth to very different feelings than those inspired by the overthrow of the Eutychian Heresy. From the earliest times of the Church, the See of Alexandria had the Primacy after Rome : — till, at the second (Ecumenical Council, that of Constantinople, which was composed almost entirely of Eastern Bishops, the Imperial City itself was elevated to that rank. At first Alexandria protested ; S. PULCHERIA. 151 but soon, with a true remembrance of the blessing of him that abaseth himself, her Patriarch acqui- esced. Rome, however, stood firm ; and during the seventy years that followed, the East and West were at variance on this subject, though without the occa- sioning thereby of any unseemly contention. In the ' Council of Chalcedon, Anatolius procured the con- firmation of his own claims, the Roman Legates giving the technical Negatur, that is, protesting against the proceeding. The Council having been dissolved, application was made in its letter to Leo for his ratification of this decree. The Pope, far from granting it, wrote to Marcian and Pulcheria, requesting their interference against what he termed the arrogance of Anatolius ; against whom, though, it seems, without foundation, he entertained suspicions of a leaning to the doctrine which he had originally embraced, — that of the Eutychians. Anatolius, in a submissive letter, satisfied S.Leo of his orthodoxy, but the claim of the Church of Constantinople was never given up, and finally was acknowledged by Rome. The last months of the Empress's life were saddened by the excesses of one Theodosius in Palestine. He persuaded several monks of his piety and zeal, took possession of the Patriarchal Chair at Jerusalem, and addressed letters to Pulcheria, calumniating her as a Nestorian ; while he exercised a perfect tyranny over the Holy Land. S. Pulcheria replied mildly and persuasively, declaring the ortho- 152 ' LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. doxy of her faith, and exhorting her suhjects to peace. Marcian, in his answer, added threats to admonitions ; and both letters met with the warm approbation of S. Leo. The last epistle which we possess of the Empress was written to Bassa, an Abbess at Jerusalem, on the subject of the unjust accusations of Theodosius. Finally, fuller of good works than years, jElia Pulcheria was called from an earthy to a Heavenly Kingdom, in the month, as it should seem, of July, A.D. 453. Several of her churches remained, in after ages, to testify of her piety ; and the third and fourth (Ecumenical Councils will bear everlasting witness to her faith and to her prudence. Bwnps!ia, fflatiba, Victoria, AND THEIR COMPANIONS, CONFESSORS. A.D. 484. •HE Antichrist of Paganism had been overthrown by the prayers and the sufferings of the Church ; but the more dangerous Antichrist of Heresy arose to supply its place. Arianism was cast forth from the Company of the Faithful ; and thenceforth sought to persecute those whom it could not pervert. Whence the fierce nation of the Vandals arose, neither are geographers agreed, nor is it necessary to our story to tell. Swarming forth from the northern regions of Germany, they poured them- selves over the fertile realm of France ; and here they sent many martyrs to a crown of glory. To Arian heresy they joined heathen ferocity; calling themselves servants of the One God, they shewed their religion in nothing else than in torturing and 154 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. slaying the followers of the Faith of Nicaea. From France they entered the Spains, laying waste the Catholick churches with fire and with sword ; and among the most illustrious of their victims was the Virgin Martyr S. Vincentia. Thence, called in by the weaker party of two opposing factions, they entered Africa ; and the feeble successors of Con- stantine yielded it with hardly a struggle. And the barbarian Genseric was no sooner seated on the throne, than he commenced a persecution which for persevering ferocity has no parallel in the annals of the Church. But of the crimes and the conquests of this monarch we are not about to write. We must tell of the cruelties of his more terrible son Huneric, Like others whom God has raised up to be the scourges of a corrupt age, and to purify the faith of His Elect, Huneric commenced his reign with an appearance of religion and moderation. The Mani- chseans, who abounded in that wretched country, were banished by royal edict, and the Church of Carthage, after a widowhood of twenty-four years, was permitted to choose itself a prelate. The election fell on S. Eugenius, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and doubtless raised up to guide his people in the dangerous times that were approaching. Though the possessions of the Church had been confiscated, the alms of the Bishop were so profuse as to excite the wonder of the barbarians themselves. SS. DIONYSIA, DATIVA, VICTORIA. 155 His virtues, however much the joy and the triumph of his own flock, caused grief and indignation to the ; Arian Bishops, and more especially to one Cyril, or ! Cyrillas, a determined enemy of the truth. ^' Be- hold, O king," said they to Huneric, " the boldness of this new preacher of Three Gods. If your clemency allows the Romans thus to meet in the churches, give orders that none who use the barbaric dress shall presume to be found henceforth in the Nicene Assem- blies." The command was accordingly conveyed to Eugenius. "The House of God," replied he, stands open to all ; I may not repel those that would enter." On this, officers were placed at the doors of the church ; and on finding any man or woman in the Vandal costume who were about to enter, they hurried them olf to torture. Inserting in their hair a toothed roller, and twisting it round and round, they tore hair and skin from the head of the sufferers. And herein was the father of lies proved, though contrary to his own intention, to have spoken the truth. "Skin for skin," he said, "yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." And so these courageous confessors cheerfully gave skin for skin, that so they might preserve that life which was hid with Christ in God. And now many of the faithful had visions of the impending calamity. One beheld the church of S. Faustus arrayed for the Divine Mysteries, with lights, and jewels, and hangings, and thronged 156 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. with worshippers. And lo! on a sudden the bril- liance was extinguished, and the worshippers ex- pelled, and a band of Ethiopians filled the basilica ; and for the sweet smell of incense there was the fcetor of corruption. Another beheld a threshing- floor, covered with mingled wheat and chaff. And as he looked, the sky darkened, and a storm arose, and the wind beat on the floor, and hurried away the chaff to its destruction ; but the grain remained unmoved. And as he marvelled what this might mean, One clothed in shining garments drew near, and examined the wheat grain by grain, casting away the bad, and preserving the good. And when he had made an end of his scrutiny, the heap had dwindled down, till a very small portion remained. The Bishop Quintian seemed to stand upon a moun- tain, and to behold a large flock of sheep ; in the midst of which were two boiling cauldrons. And there were butchers at hand, who slew the sheep, and seethed their flesh, until all were consumed. The persecution commenced with an edict, that none should enjoy any office in the palace, or in the government, unless he first professed himself an Arian. Multitudes resigned all their possessions, that their treasure in Heaven might remain. Anxious to dis- cover some pretext on which the Catholick prelates might be condemned, Huneric assembled the con- secrated Virgins, and exposed them to all insults, that they might falsely accuse their Bishops ; and SS. DIONYSIA5 DATIVA, VICTORIA. 157 when they refused to do this, some were hurnt with heated iron, some suspended with weights to their feet ; many died under the severity of the torture : hut yet, for all this, the tyrant found no way whereby he might cast reproach on the Church of Christ. The Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons, to the number of four thousand nine hundred and seventy- six, having been sent into exile, the defence of the faithful seemed gone. While we were going on our journey," says S. Victor, himself one of the sufferers, in his history of the Vandalic persecution, " in company with the army of God, we beheld a woman carrying a bag with clothes, and holding in her hand a little infant, whom she thus consoled : — ^ On, my man ! — Look at all these Saints ; how joy- fully they are hastening to their Crown !' We blamed her, because it seemed improper on account of her sex, that she should journey with men, or be asso- ciated to the army of Christ. ^ Bless me, bless me,' she replied ; ' and pray for me, for, though a sinner, I am the daughter of the sometime Bishop of Zara.' ^ And why,' we said, ' are you walking thus miserably ? — and why are you thinking of so long a journey V * I go,' she replied, ^ with this little one, your servant, into exile, lest the enemy should find him alone, and call him back from the way of truth, to death.' On hearing this, our eyes were filled with tears ; and we could only say, ^ The Will of God be done !"' p 158 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. The Bishops of Africa were shortly afterwards summoned hy Huneric to give an account of their Creed, and the reasons which had led them to adopt it. Their profession of faith is still extant: but neither its truth nor its arguments touched the heart of the tyrant. And in the furious persecution that followed. Christian matrons and Christian maidens followed nobly in the steps of their Bishops. Dionysia is one whose name is held in honour by the Church. A matron she was of rank and reputa- tion, and foremost among the band of Confessors in asserting the Consubstantiality of the Son of God. " Ministers of the devil,'' she exclaimed as she was suffering under the lashes of the torturers, "what ye do to my shame on earth, is reckoned to my glory in Heaven." And being well versed in Holy Scrip- ture, she comforted and exhorted those that were spectators of her conflict. Among these was her own son, a youth of tender age, by name Majoricus. He was horror-struck at the agonies of his mother, and seemed to waver, at least in her zealous appre- hensions. "Remember, my son," she exclaimed, "that we have been baptized in the name of the Trinity, and in our mother — the Church Catholick. Let us not lose the jewel of our salvation, lest He That inviteth us find us, when He comes, without the wedding garment, and say to His servants. Cast them into outer darkness : — there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That punishment, my son, SS. DTONYSIA, DATIVA, VICTORIA. 159 s to be feared, which is endless ; that Life to be lesired, which is everlasting." Confirmed by her exhortations, the youth laid down his life in this ^ood fight ; and his mother embracing his remains, md giving thanks to the Lord, commanded that hey should be buried in her own house. " So,'* she said, " shall my prayers prevail more when they ire assisted by the intercessions of a Martyr.'' She lerself, it would appear, survived the confession, i^ith her suffered her sister, Dativa, and Leontia, he daughter of the Bishop S. Germanus. And we must praise God in relating the constancy if another Roman lady, by name Victoria. She was uspended aloft, that, by the torture and the weari- less, her resolution might be broken ; and her Lusband, who had apostatized, stood by her side onjuring her to have pity, if not on herself, at least n him, and on their common children ; but she riumphed over all. Another matron was, with her husband, arrested s an Homousiany and committed to prison. The wo were confined apart ; and news, in due time, was rought to the wife that her husband had apostatized. ^ Let me see him," she replied, " and I will do as rOD shall will." She was led forth ; and before the ribunal, she found her husband ; a vast number of pectators assisting at the Court. " Miserable man," he exclaimed ; " what have you done ? You have •referred a moment of ease to an eternity of glory. 160 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Your gold and silver may profit you in this world : will they deliver you from the torments of hell fire V* "What mean you?" he replied. "In the name of Christ, I remain a Catholick ; and will not lose that which I hold." And so the treachery of the hereticks hecame apparent, and the Church was con- firmed in the faith. And this faith was approved by the astonishing miracle — a miracle which neither the ingenuity of Arian blasphemers, nor the unbelief of modern scepticks, can gainsay, — of those Confessors of Christ, who, when their tongues had been cut out, yet spake plainly to the end of their lives. It falls not within our design to tell of the miserable death of Huneric, nor the deliverance of the Cartha- ginian Church by the conquests of Belisarius. We have said enough to shew that in Africa also " the Lord chose new wars," by making Christian Virgins His Confessors and Martyrs. VIRGIN AND CONFESSOR. A.D. 60g. ■pROM the Primitive to the Mediaeval Church! It is a great, an astonishing change ; and lo ! (rith the lapse of a few years, we have completely passed the boundaries that separate the one from the other. The Martyrs in the Vandalic persecution, he teaching of their Bishops, their customs, their sentiments, their very words, are in no respect dis- tinguishable from the actions and sufferings of the Martyrs under Nero or Domitian. And as little is Genevieve to he distinguished from the Virgin Saints of Mediaeval times, from S. Adelaide, from S. Etheldreda, from S. Rosaly. The cause of this sudden change is not to be attributed to the lapse of time alone. It is certain that the violent ending of the Western Empire by the accession of Odoacer, under the title of the King p 2 162 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. of Italy, is a great ecclesiastical, as well as civil, epoch. But it is not this only ; we must take into account the different countries of Dionysia and Genevieve. Africa, possessing something of the same character that distinguished the immutable East, long clung to the Primitive model : the nation was worn out and decaying, and without any power of reproduction. France, on the contrary, instinct with vigour, received the Doctrine of the Church into fresh, though wild, ground. She never knew any but Christian art, — at least to any considerable degree, — and she moulded it, and was moulded by it. Genovefa, better known by the name of Genevieve, was born near Paris, at a place then called Nemeto- dorus, now Nanterre, and in the year 422, according to the most probable accounts. Her father was named Severus ; her mother, Gerontia. Christianity at this time had made considerable progress in France ; and although the Baptism of Clovis did not take place for more than seventy years subse- quently, persecution, except accidentally and locally, was unknown. S. Martin of Tours had but very lately gone to his rest ; and his tomb was becoming illustrious by that wonderful series of miracles which, till the supernatural gifts of healing were withdrawn: from the Saint's r clicks, excited the wonder and attracted the devotion of Europe. With respect to the state of the Universal Church, S. Augustin and S. Paulinus of Nola were still in the height of their I I S. GENEVIEVE. 163 I^ L'eputation. S. Jerome had just been removed from :he Church MiUtant. Two years only elapsed jetween the departure of S. Eustochium and the birth of S. Genevieve. Great Britain now labouring under the Pelagian heresy, which attributed to the free will and power of man that which Catholick teaching ascribes to the Grace of God, the two holy Bishops, Germanus and Lupus, went forth from France to attack it by the purity of their doctrine and the splendour of their miracles. They came (a.d. 429) to Nanterre, and entered the church for the sake of devotion ; on which a great crowd of people, anxious to obtain the benediction of two such eminent prelates, encircled the church door, and awaited their coming out. Among them was Genovefa, brought thither by the piety of her parents. S. Germanus, perceiving the fair child that stood before him, ordered that she should be brought near, and inquired her name* On hearing it from the crowd, "Where," said he, are her father and mother?" The people passed on the inquiry, and the parents hastened to the Bishop. "Is this infant," he demanded, "your child?" ." Ours, my lord," they answered. " Happy," he ex- claimed, " are ye to be her parents ! Know ye that that she shall be great in the sight of the Lord ; and many, following her holy resolution and conver- sation, forsaking their ungodly and unchaste life, and turning to the Lord, shall receive the remis- 164 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. sion of their sins, and the rewards of Life from Christ." After vespers, S. German invited S. Genovefa and her parents to his lodgings, and there spoke to the j child of the happiness of a more perfect devotion to God than was compatible with the ordinary inter- course of the world, and the usual cares of a house- hold ; and hanging round her neck a piece of money stamped with a Cross, bade her never henceforth to wear any other necklace. And in remembrance of this, till the French Revolution, the Canons Regular of S. Genevieve were accustomed, on the Festival oi the Saint, to distribute loaves marked with the figure of this coin. And so the good Bishops went on their way, where we will leave them, valiantly fighting the battles of the Church. But Genovefa had much to endure from her mother before she was allowed to follow her own desire in consecrating herself to God. It is said that, on presenting herself for this purpose to a Bishop called by some writers Julius, by others Flavian, he placed her before her companions, though the youngest, and consequently the last. On the death of her parents, Genovefa went to Paris, where she was sorely tried. Not only was she afflicted with the palsy, but exposed to the sus- picions and ill judgments of her fellow-citizens, who far from recognising a Saint in their city, despised her, and threatened her as an evil-doer. But when S. GENEVIEVE. 165 5. Germanus came again to Paris, before hh second /oyage to Britain, he inquired after the Virgin ; and iespising the popular clamour, sought out her house, md greeted her with singular reverence and affection. jFhen the Parisians were for the time convinced of he injustice of their censures ; but on the departure )f the Bishop again adopted the same opinions, and went so far as to determine on the death of Genovefa. The Archdeacon of Auxerre, summoned in haste, by Iwelling on the greatness of the sin, and the grief chat it would occasion to his Bishop, succeeded in putting a stop to the commotion. The irruption of the Huns, which, as we related before, threw an obstacle in the way of the Synod of Chalcedon, was a means of approving to the world the piety of Genovefa. So great was the terror at Paris, that the inhabitants thought of leaving the city ; some were already collecting their valuables ; many taking counsel as to the most eligible place of refuge. Geno- vefa, calling some of the matrons together, implored them not to forsake the city, and assured them that if they would implore God's mercy on themselves and their husbands by prayer and fasting. He would ; not give Paris into the hands of the barbarians : and the event proved their faith, and her words. Many miracles are related of her at this period. We will only mention one ; and we will give it in the words of her ancient biographers. With how great veneration and love she regarded 166 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the place" — which afterwards obtained the name of S. Denys — "where S. Dionysius with his covor panions, Rusticus and Eleutherius, suffered and was interred, it were ill done to pass in silence. Fervent < was the desire of Blessed Genevieve to build a basilic in honour of S. Denys, Bishop and Martyr, but she lacked the means. Now when the Priests of the city had visited her, as their wont was, on a certain day, she said to them. Venerable and Holy Fathers in Christ, and my lords, I pray you to make a collection for the building a basilic to the honour of S. Denys ; for none can doubt how terrible and awful that place is. But they answered. Perhaps the power of building will be wanting to our littleness ; for we have not means of burning lime. To whom Genovefa, with a bright countenance, and far brighter mind, spake out clearly, and said unto them. Go forth, I pray your holinesses, and walk over the bridge of the city, and bring me word again what ye shall hear. Who, when they were gone out into the street, stood waiting for somewhat that might appear consonant to the desire of the Holy Virgin. And, behold, two swineherds standing near to them fell into conversation, and saith one to the other. While I was tracking a boar that had strayed for pasture, I found a lime-bed of marvellous size. To whom replies the other herdsman, I also found in a wood a tree torn up from its roots by the wind, and under it a bed of lime, from which, as I think, nothing has S. GENEVIEVE. 167 k is yet been taken. Now, when they had heard these hings, the Priests Hfted up their eyes, and gave hanks to God, Which had bestowed such grace on •lis servant Genovefa." And thus the church was egun, and happily finished. Her fame was not confined to Christians, but soon pread itself into the court of King Childeric. That aonarch, though he remained a Pagan, had great eneration for the Saint, and was in the habit of paring malefactors at her intercession. It would be easy to fill page after page with the niracles that her biographers have handed down as )f her working ; but in the lives which we propose 0 write of Mediaeval Saints, we shall dwell less on heir miracles than on their virtues. To disbelieve Mediaeval Miracles is to reject Mediaeval history ; for whether we excuse our incre- lulity by asserting that the biographers of Saints abricated their actions, or were so grossly credulous s to attribute not once only, but thousands and housands of times, supernatural agency to every- lay occurrences ; whether, in short, we impugn their eracity, or deny their common sense, we equally ifFect their credit as historians. It may be, indeed, v ery possible that, in several instances, phenomena, explicable to us by our superior knowledge of second causes, may be attributed by them to the direct nterference of the First ; but, in myriads of cases, a a:iiracle cannot be denied but by the supposition of an 168 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. intentional falsehood. And whether then is it more likely, that the laws of Nature should have been, in confirmation of our Saviour's Promise, sus- pended at the prayer of faith, or that men famous in the Church should have lied to the Holy i Ghost, Whose assistance they often begin by invoking ? Nevertheless, as we said, we shall not dwell much on mediaeval miracles. In the first place there is a \ general sameness in them, which renders their reci- tation, especially in a scries of Lives of the Saints, unprofitable. In the second it behoves us to be mindful of the woe that is pronounced on him that shall offend one of these little ones. Now, as a matter of fact, the miracles to which we refer are generally, and most unhappily, disbelieved among us. To dwell on them, far from adding to, would depreciate, the reputation of the Saint of whom they were related. We must argue not from Mediaeval Miracles to Mediaeval Holiness, but from Mediaeval Holiness to Mediaeval Miracles. A miserable thing that we should have to argue the subject at all! A heartless consideration that works written in the spirit in which we endeavour to write, must so soon become valueless, as saying either too much or too little ! Till better days come, we would earnestly pray that the eyes of both those for whom we write, and of all others, may be opened to see the Majesty and the Loveliness of the Medi- S. GENEVIEVE. 169 3eval Church; so to see it as, each for herself, to mdeavour as far as may be to restore it. Of S. Genovefa's departure, history has preserved 10 particulars. This only we know : that after serv- ng God eighty years in this world, she departed :o that Land where they reckon not by years, and :o the sight of Him Whom she had ardently loved, md to Whom she had constantly lived. The original Lives of S. Genevieve are followed by I long history of the miracles performed by her -emains. Not intending, as we said, to relate these, )r to dwell on the Translation of her relicks, we vill rather, in a different manner, contrast a mediaeval vith a modern funeral. What can be more full )f faith than the one? — what more heartless and lesponding than the other ? )h ! give us back the times of old I — Oh ! give us back one day, ^o make us feel that Holy Church o'er death hath queenly sway : ^ake hence the Heathen trappings : take hence the Pagan show, ;'he mimicry, the heartlessness, the unbelief of woe ; ;'he nodding plumes, the painted staves, the mutes in black array, ["hat grain their hard- won earnings by so much grief per day : 'he steeds, and scarves, and crowds that gaze with half- suspended breath, lS if of all things terrible most terrible were death, — Lud let us know to what we go, and wherefore we must weep, f for the Christian's hopeful rest, or everlasting sleep. a 170 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Lay in the dead man's hand the Cross — the Cross upon his breast, — Because beneath the shadow of the Cross he went to rest : And yet the Cross go on before — the Crucified was first To pass before His people, and the bands of death to burst : And be the widow's heart made glad with charitable dole, And pray the prayer of earnest faith for this departed soul ; And be the De Pro/undis sung for one of Christ's Own Fold, And — for a prisoner is set free — the bells be rung, not toll'd. When face to face we stand with death, thus Holy Church records He is our slave, and we, in Her, his masters and his lords ! Deck the High Altar for the Mass I — Let tapers guard the hearse I — For Christ, the Light That lighteneth all, to blessing turns the curse : And be Nicsea's Creed intoned, and be the Gospel said In calm low voice ; for preaching now can profit not the dead. Then forth with banner, Cross, and Psalm, and chant, and hymn, and prayer !— And look not on the coffin ; for our brother is not there : His soul, we trust assuredly, is safe in Abraham's breast ; And with Christ's many faithful his body shall have rest. When earth, its cares, and sorrows, and thousand turmoils cease, By all Thy joys, by all Thy woes. Lord Jesu, grant them peace 1 VIRGIN AND ABBESS. ABOUT A.D. 542. !T is not without some hesitation that we have included Scholastica in our Annals of Virgin ints. On the one hand, of her actual life, — of her walking with God, of her victories over self, — we know nothing, or next to nothing ; on the other, not to write of the first Virgin who in the Western Church embraced a regular rule of monasticism, mght well seem a culpable omission. We can only grieve, that, of one of whom we might have hoped to say so much, we are able to say so little. There dwelt, towards the end of the fifth age, at Nursia on the borders of Umbria, a nobleman and his lady who, long married, had no prospect of children. They felt this affliction, as it was intended, a call to earnest prayer with fasting, that, if it pleased God, He would not permit them to go down 172 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. to the grave without beholding some that might stand up in their place ; for they knew that children and the fruit of the womb are an heritage and a gift that Cometh of the Lord. Their prayers were heard ; and they became the parents of two children, Benedict and Scholastica. Of S. Benedict it would be far beyond our limits to write. But even he was not from his childhood more strikingly distinguished for innocence of de- meanour, and holiness of life, than was his sister. From the very cradle they both seemed dedicated to God. S. Benedict early embraced the Monastic Life. But at that time, there was no rule which bound the religious, in a particular and prescribed manner, to the service of God and the mutual comfort of each other. The life of a monk was then, for the most part, the life of a hermit, — or, if several religious dwelt together, this was merely an accidental cir- cumstance, and exercised no especial influence on the little band. It was not so in the East and iEgypt. There, under the rule of S. Pachomius or S. Basil, hundreds, — I might say thousands, — had devoted themselves to God. But these regulations did not, and could not, suit the West ; because a monastic rule, to be practical, must prescribe dress and diet ; but the dress and diet and general habits of the East could not be suitable for the colder and more trying regions of Europe. S. Benedict, as the fame S. SCHOLASTICA. 173 )f his holiness acquired disciples, composed a rule vhich has, since his time, been emphatically the ule of the West. Its various ramifications and reforms will be un- lerstood by looking at the annexed table. Many of ts offshoots formed in themselves a mighty order, [n the year 1415, it was esteemed to reckon among its members fifty-five thousand four hundred and sixty Saints, thirty-five Popes, two hundred Cardinals, 3leven hundred and sixty-four Archbishops, and hree thousand five hundred and twelve Bishops. So that this grain of mustard seed became a great tree, and filled the whole world ! Of the rule itself, with the modifications which were embraced in England, we shall have occasion to 'reat when we write of S. Adelaide. At present we will only remark, that in this instance our Blessed Lord was pleased to allow an exception to His prophecy, that a man's foes should be they of lis own household. For Scholastica, struck by the oeauty of her brother's rule, and finding her heart nclined to the more perfect way, herself embraced ■Xy — and, on Monte Cassino, became the superior of I little, but faithful band of Virgins. And that is all that History records of her life. Mter serving God for some years in much faith and patience, she heard, — so her biographer expresses it, — the voice of the Bridegroom : The winter of earthly temptations is past ; the rain of penitential tears is 174 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. over and gone ; the flowers of immortality appear to her that has hitherto been a dweller on the earth; the time of the singing the New Song is come. Arise^ My love, My fair one, and come away ! And, — as it was in the ease of S. Eulalia, — it is recorded that S. Benedict, then at a distance from his sister, beheld her soul, under the shape of a dove, winging its way towards Heaven. aUEEN AND ABBESS. ABOUT A.D. 590. T^HEN the Church had triumphed over the ' * remains of Grecian and Roman idolatry, and had enUsted on her side the learning, and the riches, and the fashion of this world, a very different, but more fearful struggle, lay before. Throughout the Western world, the whole frame of society was shaken in pieces : the fountains of the great deep of man's passions were broken up : the iron rod of Rome had been withdrawn ; barbarous hordes poured from the wild regions of the North ; law seemed at an end; and men thought that the old age of the world was come, and, the order of things failing, that the universe was going to decay. The God of Nature caused the elements and seasons to sympa- thize with this moral disorganization: there were famines and earthquakes and pestilences in divers 176 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. places : there were fearful sights and great signs from heaven : men's hearts failed them for fear, and for looking on those things which were coming on the earth. And how did the Church gird herself for the conflict to which she was now called, a conflict at once with barbarism and heresy, and the oppression of Kings ? Even as she has always done : by prayer and fasting : by conversions and miracles ; by the lives of her Saints, and the deaths of her Martyrs. In the East, the Empire of Constantinople still held together, a vast body without a spirit. Heresy in its grosser forms, those which denied the Eternal Deity and Sonship of the Saviour, the Personality of the Holy Ghost, the co-equality of the Ever- Blessed Trinity, had long since been crushed : the memories of S. Athanasius and S. Cyril, of S. Basil and S. Flavian were still mighty for the de- fence of the Truth; But the devil invented newer and subtler instruments of attacking the Faith : and the whole controversy of the Three Chapters is an ever- memorable instance, not only of his malice, but of the perpetual Presence of our Lord with His Church, and the wisdom by which He overrules all things for her good. The third and fourth (Ecumeni- cal Councils, those of Ephesus and Chalcedon, had as we have seen condemned two opposite errors : the former had anathematised those who afiirmed that our Saviour had Two Persons ; the latter, those I S. RADEGUND. 177 ho had asserted Him to have but one Nature. The rst of these heresies is Nestorianism ; the up- holders of the latter early broke into different parties, id assumed different denominations, such as Mono- jhjsites, Jacobites, Acephali; the titles of these :^cts, often expressing a variation of belief, are also ften confused. Now those who in their hearts re- ised to accept the Council of Chalcedon, unable penly to oppose its decrees, proposed the condemna- on of the Three Nestorian Chapters, — that is, of iree writings, really or suspectedly Nestorian, oping thereby to bring discredit on the Fathers of halcedon, who had approved, or had seemed to pprove, their authors. The Emperor Justinian, a lan who loved the technicalities of that Theology hich, it is to be feared, little influenced his heart, ublished an Edict against the Chapters : great as as the opposition of many parts of the Church, he arried matters with a high hand : and his sentence, roposed with an evil design, and pronounced in ti evil manner, was, in spite of the reluctance of 'ope Vigilius, confirmed by the Fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, the Second of Constantinople. In Africa, the persecution under the Arian Goths ad been terrible almost without parallel ; but there Fulgentius, like an illustrious champion, trod in he steps of S. Athanasius during his life, and like dm departed in peace. Italy, harassed by the avage armies of Totila, gloried in S. Benedict, the 178 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Father of Western Monasticism, and was rearin; an illustrious Doctor of the Church, S. Gregory tfe Great. And if the reception of the fifth CEcumeni cal Council caused a short schism in the Lati) Church, it could not deprive her of the thousand of Saints that she was then bringing up for God As in the grass-grown and deserted city of Rome, sc in the first of Benedictine Houses, Monte Cassino Italy had a noble race of future confessors : Gau could boast herself in S. Germanus at Paris, in S Paternus at Avranches, in S. Euphronius at Tours the solitudes of Perche and Maine were vocal witlj the praises of God, and tenanted by such holj hermits as S. Aimer and S. Frambauld. Scotland had S. Columba at Whithern ; Ireland, S. Gildas ; Spain, the Royal Martyr S. Hermenegild. And the woods and wastes of Germany, wild as the race which dwelt among them, the savage waters of the Baltic, and the marshy tracts of the Elbe, were the hiding places and loved retreats of many a sainted missionary, content to labour in faith, that others might possess his labours in joy. But of all the Western lands, Gaul was at this time the happiest. The valour of her sons defended her from the miseries of fruitful and weak-hearted Italy ; the Church had taken deep hold in that iron race ; churches and monasteries were rising one very side; all was new and hopeful. Not there, as in Italy, were the Arts falling ; with the So RADEGUNB. 179 ise of the Church, Art, though it might be rude nough, was daily gaining form ; and the clash of he Past with the Future was unknown. And fliracles were so common that S. Gregory of Tours, he Bede of France, has filled three treatises with he accounts of these wonders ; one he entitles Of he Glory of Martyrs," ' another, Of the Glory of yonfessors," the third, "Of the Miracles of S. tiartin." Since the baptism of Clovis the Kings f France had professed the One Faith ; and now a iueen of that fair land was to be added to the umber of the Saints, a Virgin in will, if not in eed. As the most illustrious female Saint of this entury of whose life we have any faithful detail, and ecause Such wedded souls our God will own For spotless Virgins round His Throne, re will now write her history; in which, to quote :ie words of an ancient chronicler, let the matter xcuse the manner, that whoever is displeased by le words, may be profited by the sense. We have four sources of information. 1. The Icclesiastical History of S. Gregory : 2. His already lentioned work on the Glory of Confessors : 3. ^he Life of S. Radegund by Fortunatus : 4. Its upplement by the Abbess Baudomina. Radegund was the daughter of Berchar, a petty lonarch of Thuringia. While yet a child, an 180 LIVES 0¥ VIRGIN SAINTS. irruption of the Franks carried fire and sword int her father's territory. She with others was seized and carried into captivity ; but her promise of beaut rendered her no small subject of contention to th victors. Falling to the lot of Clothaire, King o the Franks, he determined to make her, in proces of time, his Queen ; and to fit her for the dignity t( which he proposed to advance her, he placed he with fitting attendants, and procured for her a suit able education. Here then, separated from th( friends of her childhood, she first heard of the True Faith, or at least so heard of it as to embrace it. And doubtless to the broken-hearted exile it was cheering to be told, that here we have no abiding city, but look for one to come ; that there is a Friend That sticketh closer than a brother; and that our light afiliction, which is but for a moment,' worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal i weight of glory. Thus she learned to long for that more perfect way which Virgin Saints have trod ; and to pine for the devotion of the cloister. But God had other- wise ordained it. In the mean time, in ofiices of humility and charity she yielded to none ; she loved to minister to others, to take the meanest duties upon herself, to be the lowest, to be thought the least. When the time came, Clothaire sent to claim his bride ; and, after a vain endeavour at S. RADEGUND. 181 escape, slie wedded," says the chronicler, ^^an earthly King, and yet remained unseparated from the King of Kings." She followed the Scripture command, and the more she was exalted, humhled herself the more ; she gave greater heed to the Priests of God, she was in almsgiving more abun- dant, in prayer more frequent. If she appeared in her Royal Robes, during Lent they concealed a vest of sackcloth ; she rose in the winter nights, and remained fervent in prayer ; and when the King angrily declared that he had wedded rather a nun than a princess, she bore his reproaches patiently, and by meekness disarmed his indignation. And now her charity, if not more fervent, had at least a wider field for its exercise. She impover- ished herself to redeem captives ; she interceded for those condemned to die. And yet to her heavenly love she joined no small courage. Invited to a feast at the house of a noble matron named Siifreda, her lot was to pass within a mile of an idol temple. Burning with zeal against the works of the devil, she turned out of her way, and directed her attend- ants to heap billets against, and to set fire to, the unholy shrine. They dispersed themselves for wood ; the surrounding peasants took the alarm ; they col- lected in defence of their fathers' gods ; swords were brandished, and clubs raised. The royal party drew back in consternation ; the Queen reined in her horse, and exhorted them to persevere ; their labour R 182 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. was assisted by her prayers ; and in the end, not only was the hateful shrine overthrown, but peace and content restored to its former worshippers. No long time after her marriage, it pleased God to open a way for His Saint to that retirement for which she panted. Her brother was put to death on an unjust accusation ; the particulars are not re- corded ; but the King, already annoyed by the re- ligious life of Radegund, and now fearing her just reproaches, permitted her to leave his court, and to take the veil. Rejoicing in her liberty, she hastened to Noyon, where S. Medardus dwelt ; and earnestly besought him to consecrate her to God. "It is written," answered the Saint, " ^ Art thou bound to a wife ? Seek not to be loosed.' I fear, therefore, lest in obeying the commands of a Queen, I disobey the injunctions of an Apostle." — Some courtiers, who were present, urged the probability of the King's displeasure, notwithstanding his past licence; the Bishop would be interfering with a matter beyond his jurisdiction, and drawing down ven- geance on himself and on her who had fled to him for protection. The Queen retired into a separate apartment, and coming forth clothed in the garb of a nun, "If," said she to S. Medardus, "you defer my consecration, and fear man more than God, let the Shepherd of the sheep require my soul at your hand." The good Prelate, moved by so solemn an adjuration, delayed no longer ; but laying his S. RADEGUND. 183 hands on her head, consecrated her Deaconess. Radegund, taking her secular robes, offered them with all solemnity on the altar of the great church ; the value of her crown she distributed among the poor. •Then she commenced her pilgrimage to the most celebrated shrines in that region ; bestowing of her wealth on each, but most of all on the church of Tours, celebrated for the pastoral goverment, and for the miracles, of S. Martin. Having concluded her holy journey, she retired to an estate of her own in Poitou, where she led a life of great austerity. Here she continued her charity to the poor, and more especially to lepers, not disdaining to wash their sores, and to minister to them at table ; know- ing that Lazarus, who in this life was full of sores, was in the next a meet companion of Angels, and admitted into Abraham's bosom. Not long after the retreat of S. Radegund, King Clothaire, touched with the remembrance of his unkindness towards her, and perhaps finding none on whose counsel and fidelity he might so well rely, resolved to reclaim his Queen. News of this design having reached S. Radegund, she applied in great distress of mind to a holy recluse of Chinon, named John. From him she learnt that such was the jresent intention of Clothaire, but that God would not suffer him to carry it into execution. And the event proved his prediction. It was at Poictiers that she obtained leave from 184 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Clothaire to found a convent ; many hastened to flock to it, and the princess, desiring to avoid Eccle- siastical, as she had laid down civil, dignity, caused a Virgin named Agnes to be raised to the office of Abbess, and she was consecrated by the hands of S. Germanus of Paris. To her Radegund entirely submitted herself, practising the same obedience with the meanest of the sisterhood. Clothaire, for the second time, entertained the design of recalling the Queen to his court ; but unwilling to alarm her, pretended a pilgrimage of devotion to the shrine of S. Martin, intending thence to pay an unexpected visit to Poictiers, and to carry his design into execution. But Radegund received timely notice of her danger ; and wrote to S. Ger- manus, entreating him to interpose his authority with the King, in dissuading him from this enter- prise. The Bishop seized the moment when Clothaire was praying at S. Martin's tomb ; and throwing himself at his feet, conjured him to desist. Clothaire, suddenly touched with repentance, raised S. Ger- manus, and falling before him, besought him to request the intercession of Radegund for himself and for the pardon of his sins. S. Radegund, bent on the well-doing and firm estab- lishment of her monastery, obtained from the Prelates assembled in council at Tours a constitution for her nuns, placing them under the rule of S. Caesarius of Aries, and forbidding them on any pretence what- S. RADEGXJND. 185 ever to leave the cloister. She had now enriched her church with many precious rehcks, and was filled, says her biographer, with as much spiritual joy as if she had beheld the Lord of Glory conversing visibly with men : Whom, though she could not see with the eyes of the body, she yet contemplated in the sedulous prayer of her soul. But there was one more relick which she longed to possess, — a frag- ment of the True Cross. She obtained leave of King Sigebert, in whose territories she dwelt, to send an embassy to the Emperor Justin, and to im- plore from him that which she desired ; she accom- panied her messengers, not with silver and gold, for ill she possessed she had given to the poor, but with the prayers of her convent for the good success of their nission. Justin at once complied ; and sent not only I portion of the Cross, adorned with gold and gems, 3ut many other relicks, and a copy of the Gospels. The ambassadors arrived safely with their trea- sures at Poictiers ; and S. Radegund desired that the atter might be met in solemn procession, and carried ,0 their resting-place with all the pomp that the IJhurch could bestow. She therefore requested the issistance of the Bishop Maroveeus ; but he, paying 10 attention to her petition, went into the country, ^he wrote, in great affliction, to King Sigebert, equesting him to command the first Bishop with vhom he might meet, to do that honour to the Jlessed Wood of the Cross which her own Prelate R 2 186 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. had refused. And meantime the relicks reposed in a monastery at Tours, which Eadegund had her- self founded ; and S. Gregory the historian, not yet Bishop, took that opportunity of founding in the same city the church of S. Cross. Euphronius of Tours was commissioned by Sigebert to receive the holy relicks ; and they were brought into the city with great solemnity. It was on this occasion that Fortunatus, no mean Latin poet, com- posed the world-famous hymn Vexilla Regis Pro- deunt, which the Church has adopted for her own on solemn processions. We will venture to imitate it as follows : — The banpers of the King draw nigh : Shines forth the Cross's mystery : Where He, in Flesh, our flesh Who made, Our sentence bore, our ransom paid. Where for us men the Spear was dyed In the red torrent of His Side, To wash us in the Precious Flood Of mingled Water and of Blood. Fulfilled the strain that once was sung By that prophetick Monarch's tongue : — ** Among the nations from the Tree, Reigned," said the Seer, '* the Deity." Tree of our hope ! our safety's spring, Bright with the purple of a King, That bar'st — man's blessings to complete — His Pierced Hands and Riven Feet : [ S. RADEGUND. 187 I Cross of our hope, we bid thee hail ! That so thy merits may avail To give fresh virtue to the Saint, And pardon to the Penitent. Praise from all spirits He hath made To God the Trinity be paid ; Whom by the Cross Thou didst restore, Preserve, and govern evermore ! This holy joy was emhittered by the unworthy behaviour of Marovseus, who^ indignant that another Prelate should have undertaken the office which he refused, conceived a dislike to S. Radegund, and to ler convent, and refused to take the latter under his 3rotection. After going with the Abbess xlgnes to Aries, in order to learn the rule she had proposed, she obtained the Royal protection for her foundation. Often," says the nun who wrote her life, "would she discourse of heavenly things during her sleep — of Christ, of the care of the soul, of the judgment to 3ome : and then, on awaking, she would exclaim, ' Gather, gather the Lord's wheat while ye may ; for, s^erily, the opportunity of gathering it shall not long be granted to you. The days will come when you wdll regret these, and ardently desire their return ; but in vain.' And these words," continues her affec- tionate auditor, though we received them idly then, are now fulfilled ; and that has come to pass which was spoken by the Prophet^ — I will send a famine 188 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS, upon the land ; not a famine of bread and water, but of the "Word of God. For although preachers brought up under her are not wanting, yet we miss that unwearying voice, desired exhortation, sweet affection. It is like a punishment to think of them now that we have them not. O pious lady, thou shouldst have obtained from the Lord of Heaven, that thy sheep which thou hadst collected together should precede thee ; and thus, like a good shep- herd, shouldst have followed them, and presented them unto Christ !" I Come we now to the end of the course which S. Radegund was privileged to run. Till the day of her decease she relaxed nothing of her usual obser- vances, remembering that it is written, not he that beginneth well, but he that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved. Her nuns surrounded her couch as she was departing, lamenting with bitter tears the loss they were to sustain, the darkness that was to come upon them. As Marovseus was absent on a pastoral visitation, S. Gregory of Tours was summoned to the bedside of the dying Saint; but before he could arrive she had entered on her rest, departing to the Lord on Wednesday, August 13, 587. S. Gregory has left us an account of the scene that awaited him when he entered the Convent. He found the body prepared for the funeral, and stretched on the bier. An angelick smile still lighted S. RADEGUND. 189 p its cold features. The sisterhood bewailed their lother, their friend^ their spiritual guide. Three ays he abode with them, to console and to cheer. In the fourth he spoke to the Abbess of burial. Since/' said he, "it is appointed unto all men once ) die, and that when the soul hath returned to God, \^ho gave it, it follows that the body must also return nto dust, as it was, it is more than time that we ammit the remains of so illustrious a servant of 'hrist to the earth, lest the temple of the Holy rHOST should be defiled, and we ourselves dishonour er whom we seek to reverence." "It is true, holy ither," returned Agnes, "but we are beset with ifficulties ; for the portion of ground where we itend to bestow this treasure is yet unconsecrated ; be Bishop Marovseus is absent, and we know not ^hat to do." Then the sisterhood joined in beseech- ig S. Gregory to venture so far on the charity of be Bishop as to consecrate the selected plot. " And Bar not," said they, " that he will resent it as an itrusion ; rather he will accept it as a brotherly linistration. For perfect love ought to be between 'atholick Bishops ; and it is written that perfect )ve casteth out fear." Gregory consented : and as be remains of Radegund were borne from the yonvent, its walls and parapets were lined with seeping Nuns, who, forbidden by their rule to follow 3 the grave that which they held dearest, sent beir eyes, and thoughts, and prayers after the holy 190 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. convoy, and for a time drowned by their lamentatioi the psalmody of the attendant clerks. So went Saint Radegund to her quiet resting place ; but Holy Church suffered not her memory 1 die. Her body was buried in peace ; but her naiK liveth evermore. (gertruUe (of ^Mk,) VIRGIN AND ABBESS. A.D. 664. T is with a mournful pleasure that we dwell on • these early Benedictine ages. Pleasure there is in ading, or writing, of the wonderful victories over lc world, the flesh and the devil, that the regenerated lildren of the Church were then privileged to ob- in : — pleasure, in recording the marvels that the Imighty was then pleased to work by their hands, nd sorrow too, in comparing the fervour of those nes with the coldness of ours ; in knowing that the ace then bestowed, and the miracles then wrought, r from being admired among us, will, by the many, )t even be believed : and in possessing so many and bright examples which we could not if we would, id, alas ! which we would not if we could, imitate our pattern. With these feelings, we proceed to tell of one of 192 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the great lights of the Benedictine order in France,- S. Gertrude, of Brabant. She was born at Nivell and in or about the year 631. Her father, Pepii was a man of no small consequence in the kingdoi of France, being Mayor of the Palace to King Dag( bert. And it is a circumstance which, since tl Primitive times of the Church, had not often found parallel, that himself and his wife Itta, thoug! never formally canonized, are yet reckoned amon the Blessed. There is but one life of this happy Virgin whic is possessed of much authority : and that was writte by a contemporary Priest, who was evidently we acquainted with her. We shall do little more tha translate this ; nothing is more beautiful, nothin more touching, than mediaeval biography. There i another life, indeed, written by a later author, whicJ has been printed ; but, as it contains several mistaken and is little more than an amplification of the earlie account, we have not thought necessary to lay i under contribution. "When," says the writer, "the holy maidei Gertrude was in the house of her parents, at the fee of her mother, Itta, of blessed memory, she medi tated by day and night on the word and on wisdom and was dear to God and beloved among men abovi her equals. This was the first beginning of he election for the servitude of Christ, as we lean from a righteous man and a true, who was then S. GERTRUDE OF NIVELLE. 1J)3 present. Pepin, her father, had bidden Dagobert the King to a great dinner in his house ; thither also came a child of Belial, the son of one of the Dukes, who demanded from the King and from the parents of the damsel that she should be betrothed to him after the custom of this world. The thing pleased the King : both because of the friendship that was between them twain, and of his earthly ambition : and he persuaded the father of the maiden that she, together with her mother, should be called into his presence. Now they knew not the cause why the King had called her." — S. Gertrude was at this time under twelve years of age, because, according to the most probable accounts, Dagobert himself died in the year 644. — ^^She came then to the banquet : of whom the King demanded whether she would accept for her future husband the youth that stood by adorned," or as the good Priest in his barbarous Latin expresses it, wrought, with gold, and arrayed in silks. But she rejected him with anger, and said, I will neither have this, nor any other earthly lover, but Christ my Lord alone.' Insomuch that the King and his nobles marvelled greatly at the things ivhich, according to the command of God, were spoken by the mouth of a child. The young man •etired with confusion of face, and full of rage : the [naiden turned again to her mother. From that day forth her parents knew by how great a King she was beloved. s 194 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. " But her father, Pepin, departed out of this Ufe when she was about the age of fourteen years, (a.d. 646.) And she followed her mother in her widow- hood, and remained constant in her obedience, and in the commandments of God. And when every day the aforesaid mother cast in her mind, both for herself and for her fatherless daughter, what she should do ; behold a man of God, a Bishop, Amandus by name, came to her house, and preached the word at the command of God." S. Amandus, truly worthy of his name, " he that is to be loved," was • Bishop of Maestricht, and for ninety-five years served God with prayer and fasting. He was at this time about sixty-seven years of age. " And he besought " Itta that she would build for herself and for her daughter Gertrude and for all the Christian family a monastery. Who as soon as she had knowledge of a thing that she as yet knew not, but which pertained i to the salvation of souls, received the holy veil, j and devoted to God both herself, and all that she had." This is a remarkable passage, as shewing how imperfectly the Benedictine system had as yet | penetrated France. " But dhe enemy of the human race, who, from the beginning, out of envy, resisteth good works, stirred up the heart of the wicked, so that Itta sus- tained no little temptation from them that should have travailed with her in doing the will of God. What injuries and disgraces and penury she sulfered, S. GERTRUDE OF NIVELLE. 195 with her daughter, for the Name of Christ, it would be tedious to relate, if every particular were set down/' 4nd probably, also, some of those might be living when the biographer wrote, who were implicated in the fault which he here notices. But this only I will mention. To the end that the spoilers of souls might not by force carry away her daughter to the snares and pleasures of this world, she laid hold with her own hands of the scissors, and shaped the naiden's hair into the crown," that is, gave her he ecclesiastical tonsure. '^And the servant of ^^HRiST returned thanks to God, and rejoiced that ihe had merited to receive, in this brief life, the Town on her head for Christ, that there, — and notice the beautiful use of the word, as if here could be but one there to a Christian,) — 'that there she might be accounted worthy to obtain the perpetual Crown, perfection of mind md body. Then God, That is very pitiful, and a ^ery present Help in trouble, made the very ene- nies of His servants to be at peace with them, strife was at an end : the devil was vanquished. So Itta delivered her daughter, Gertrude, the Sleet of God, to the Priests of the Lord, that she [light receive with her companions the holy veil and et her over the monastery. Fair was she in counte- lance, but fairer in mind : endued with charity, plenteous in almsgiving, given to fasting and prayer, ►rovident for the poor and the stranger, gentle to the 196 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. infirm and old, rigorous in discipline touching the young : and towards all that pertained to the Church she shewed truly pastoral care and devotion. And by her messengers, men of good trust, she sent for the writings of the Saints from Rome, and from beyond the sea she summoned skilful men, who should teach the sisterhood hymns, touching the Divine Law, that she might continually have, by the inspira- tion of God, somewhat whereon both she and hers might meditate." The author of the larger life calls these " skilful men" S. Foillan, and S. Uttan, and we are informed that they came from Scotland. The chronicler goes on to tell of the happy de- parture of Itta, who, full of days and peace, was called into the joy of her Lord. After this, S. Gertrude divided the care and the responsibility of her monastery with others ; giving its external re- lations and revenues into the charge of some clerks, and sharing with certain of the elder sisters the spiritual direction of the House. After relating two miracles, one of which he had from the Saint's own mouth, the biographer proceeds, "After some years, through her too long abstinences and over- rigorous vigils, her earthly frame was afflicted by a grievous disease ; and Gertrude, by Divine revelation, knew that the time of her departure was at hand. Taking counsel, therefore, with the servant of God, she wholly gave up all dignity, pre-eminence and pastoral care ; and appointed her niece, by name S. GERTRUDE OF NIVELLE. 197 in her place, to govern the fold of God^ md to minister to the poor. She was in the twentieth rear of her age ; and of honourable race among the Franks. Now it came to pass that, out of the latred thej hare her father. Kings, and Queens, and ;ven the Priests of God sought to cast her down rom that place." — This sentence needs explanation. iVulfedrude was the daughter of S. Gertrude's )rother Grimoald. This chief on the death of S. ^igehert. King of the Franks, had forced his son, Oagohert, to take refuge in Ireland; and had ob- truded his own, Childebert, on the Throne. The ^ kings," are, therefore, Clothaire III., and his brother IJhilderic II.; the "queens," their mother S.Bathilde, md Immechilde, the widow of S. Sigebert. — " But ;he, protected by the loving-kindness of God, and he prayers of the Saints, opposed the enemies of Christ with marvellous courage ; and God so gave ler His Grace, that they who had, through their Lvarice, been plunderers and accusers, the same by heir good deeds became promoters and defenders. " Gertrude, then, the handmaiden of the Lord, ifter that she had laid aside the burden of her lonours, ceased not during the space of three nonths to be fervent in prayer, exhorting her own md preaching to them the Word of God, rejoicing n hope, patient in tribulation, unconquered in mind, erene in countenance ; — she was hastening from a lungeon to a Palace, from darkness to Light, from s 2 198 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. death to Life. And when she drew near towards her end, she ordained that in her sepulture they should use no garment of wool or linen, save one poor veil to cover her head, and her habit of sackcloth." She departed to her rest on the second Sunday in Lent, A.D. 664 ; which, that year, fell on the seven- teenth of March. And the writer of her life in- forms us that he and another brother were summoned to console the sisterhood. We have only further to remark that S. Gertrude of Brabant is not to be confounded with S. Gertrude, commonly called the Great, Virgin and Abbess ; who departed in Upper Saxony in the year of grace 1292. VIRGIN, aUEEN, AND ABBESS. A.D. 679. 'T is sometimes objected against those who cannot ^ see perfection in our present civil or ecclesiastical ystem, and who would not be accessories to the de- srving the curse of Laodicea, that they are prejudiced gainst the country of their birth,— un-English in eart and affection. Un-English ! as if any could be lore intensely English than they, who have been ^ont to read by day, and to dream by night, of the Ingland of Saints ! The marvellous beauties of our ative land have for such a charm that they lack for thers ; every where they meet with some trace, )vely in ruin, of what our Church once was, and f what, by God's Grace, she will again become, 'he deep sand-lanes of Sussex, where the oaks iistle, and the green May talks with the breeze, — all to their mind the Benedictine solemnity of 200 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Battle, or the Cluniac loveliness of Boxgrove. Surrey, with its barren moors, and quiet peeps into the blue distance, and tufted fir-knolls, was not always what it is now. You could not travel league after league, and find the air unmusical with the con- vent bell; glorious Shene, or Newark in its quiet dell, or shady Waverley by its swift river, — all were ready, with open gate, to welcome the benighted or weary pilgrim. Those were not the times that, in travelling through Lancashire, the eye rested on black forests of chimneys, without a church to hallow and tranquillise the industry of this world, without a cell to shelter the poor man's bodily and ghostly comforter ; Whalley was there in its Decorated loveliness, and Furness reposed, — as its lovely ruins* still do, — in the beautiful valley of Nightshade. Talk of the advance of civilisation, the facilities of locomotion, the greater ease of travelling ! Norfolk could tell, I trow, another tale. From Diss, from Lynn, and from Wisbech ran a fair high road, some- 1 what, it is true, overhung with the ash, and shaded by the elm, but firm to the foot of the pilgrim, and hard and solid in the driving rains of November, and the miserable thaws of February. And often, where the greensward at its side encroached on the corn-field, forming a quiet nook for the fragrance of flowers and the toiling of the summer bee, some curious oratory invited the entrance of the passers- by ; — some way-side Cross pointed to Him That is S. ETHELDREDA. 201 e true and living Way. The snow was swept from at road in winter ; and the neighbouring villages ok care that it should still be in good repair ; — id ever, where a lane branched off from it, the tra- iler was admonished of his course by the sign — for gnposts are not a modern invention, — loape our HaUge of TOlaygngljamt. Cornwall was )t then left defenceless, and a prey to be swept by ery wind of schism. The mariner tossed on the mgerous billows that do everlasting battle with her ags, if he saw his peril in the sunken rocks, and le granite peaks, — saw also his protection in the lapel which crowned them. The loveliest spots of le land were God's ; fertile valleys, and green- oods, hill-sides and pasture-meadows, moor and ver-bank, were melodious with His praises : the irth was the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. It is said — and the remark is not so trifling as it ppears — that during the last two centuries English eauty has been on the dechne. God has so ordered , that, as it is undoubtedly true with respect to art, 3 should it also be true with reference to person, hat physical and moral beauty should go hand in and. Where there is the calm trust, the subdual f self, the constant communion with bright thoughts nd glorified spirits, that are the heritage of the 'hurch's children, there it must be — not perhaps in ne generation, but in the long run — that features re moulded and expression influenced accordingly. 202 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. On the other hand, where there is the craving afteii excitement, the rage for novelty, the querulousness, the unsatisfiedness of the present age, the hodilyf must suffer in process of time with the spiritual! frame. By the consent of the whole world, Normani loveliness was the perfection of feminine heauty ; it followed the race as a heritage. Judge we for our- selves whether it he as common among us as alii writers affirm it to have been among our fore- fathers. ' English, therefore, in heart we are — and we shall < ever remain ; for we are sure that England's Church was once unrivalled among the nations of the earth. T Call to mind her Saints, and a glorious multitude rush on our thoughts, from S. Alban, her first i martyr, to S. Thomas of Canterbury ; Doctors like ' S. Anselm and Lanfranc ; Sages like V. Bede and S. Gil das ; wonder-working Prelates like S. Richard of Chichester, and S. William of York ; holy Virgins i like S. Edith and S. Frideswide ; devoted Mis- sionaries like S. Boniface and S. Birinus. Call to mind her churches, and who shall match Glaston- bury, and Reading, and Bury, and Winchelcombe, as they were ; Lincoln, and Westminster, and S. Alban' s, and York, as they might be again? Call to mind her art, her sculptors, her glass- stainers, her metal-workers, her wood-carvers ; while her daughters may well be proud that the exquisite beauty of their work gave occasion to a Papal brief, S. ETHELDREDA. 203 questing specimens of it for the adornment of tlie |eat churclies of Rome. ' We have not, it is true, yet written of an EngHsh int. Not, he sure, hecause we could not find any such among Saxon maidens ; hut partly hecause eir acts are hrief or imperfect, partly hecause we iould have heen forestalled ourselves, or have heen re stalling others, in writing of them. But we will )t pass over so memorahle an instance of God's race as that afforded hy the Queen, the Ahhess, the irgin, the Saint, Etheldreda. Of the re-introduction of Christianity, and re- tablishment of the Church in England hy the ission of S. Augustine, this is not the time nor the ace to speak. It had penetrated East Anglia ; and s monarch, S. Anna, was an illustrious example of le power of that religion which he professed. He )ok to wife Hereswitha, of the race of King dwin of Northumberland ; a princess admirable for ery virtue while she lived, and after her death iscrihed in the Catalogue of the Saints. They had x children — Aldulf and Jurmin ; Sexhurga, jEdel- urga, Etheldreda, and Withhurga. Of these all ut the first attained to the honour of canonization. S. Etheldreda was horn at Exning, then the capital f East Anglia — now a little village in a detached )art of Suffolk, that lies, like an island, in the astern portion of Cambridgeshire. Trace of the )alace there is none, for the fashion of this world 204 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. passeth away ; but the well in which the youn^ Princess was baptized by S. Paulinus still exists, anc is known to this day by the title of S. Mindred'i Well. The village itself bears no marks of it^j, former grandeur ; for in time of plague, its markeijl was removed to a neighbouring situation, whicli thence, in process of time, derived the name of New | rnarket. | She early embraced a resolution of perpetual vir j ginity — a resolution, however, in which her parente did not concur. She was sought in marriage bj Tonbert, Prince of the Girvii — that is, of the people that dwelt in Huntingdonshire, with the adjacenl parts of Cambridge and Northamptonshire. Much against her own will, she was compelled to bestow on him her hand ; but her prayers and tears touched the heart of the young Prince, and he permitted his bride to continue in the state which she had chosen. She loved him with sisterly friendship for the space of three years, at the end of which time he was removed from the world : and Etheldreda, while she sorrowed, though not hopelessly, for his loss, availed herself of the more uninterrupted opportunity that she thus enjoyed of the service of God. (a.d. 655.) But before this time she had wept over two griev- ous afflictions. The first was the death of S. Felix, Bishop of Elmham, who may almost be called the Apostle of Suffolk, and who, doubtless, had laboured assiduously, and the event shews how blessedly, in S. ETHELDREDA. 205 raining the infant mind of the East Anghan Prin- ess. But a still heavier blow was the death of I. Anna. Penda, King of the Mercians, a fierce ^SLgan, marched against the kingdom of the East Angles. The monarch raised what forces he might, nd advanced to repel the invader. The battle Dined ; Anna was slain ; and the realm was opposed o all the miseries of a heathen conquest. Heres- eitha retired to France, where she took the veil. He was succeeded by his brother, ^Edelhere, a )rince who perished miserably. Penda, the great dversary of the Christian Name, had conquered he army of Northumbria in the decisive battle of y[aser, wherein S. Oswald, the King, had died the Martyr's death. Believing himself invincible, he low advanced against Oswy, the new monarch of Northumbria, at the suggestion, it is said, of jSldel- lere ; and with him went thirty Dukes, or Princes, nost of them Pagans, that were his allies. Oswy net theirs with far inferior forces ; but his trust was n the God of Battles. The Mercian troops were lefeated, with great slaughter ; Penda himself fell ; md among the slain was the unworthy ^delhere. rhe East Anglian sceptre thus passed into the hands )f the third brother, ^thelwald, a man who walked n the steps of the departed Anna. In the meantime the family were rapidly increas- ng. Erconbert, King of Kent, had taken to wife Sexburga, the sister of S. Etheldreda: by her he T 206 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. had a daughter, S. Ermenild. Wulfhere, son of Penda, having, four years after his father's death, been raised by the Mercians to the throne, they threw off the Northumbrian yoke, and the hand of Ermenild was given to the new monarch ; and by him she became the mother of the more celebrated S. Werburga, so celebrated at Chester. Her abbey, or rather the building which took its place, now forms the cathedral church of that see. ^thelwald, it appears, was anxious to extend the ' knowledge of the True Faith ; and he bent his it utmost endeavours to effect the conversion of ii Swithelm, King of Essex. We are so accustomed P in thinking of the intercourse between Christian and ^ heathen states, to connect social superiority and i greater proficiency in the Arts (and, among others, 1 in that of war) with the former, that it is not easy 1 to realize a condition of things in which the Church 1' possessed no such adventitious vantage-ground. On | the contrary, the Christian troops appear often to have been decidedly inferior to those of the Pagan princes ; and, doubtless, in architectural skill, no difference was discernible. The temple of Thor, or Woden, in j which Swithelm worshipped, was probably equal to such a church as Brixworth, or Jarrow. Neverthe- less, the King of Essex gave ear to the instructions of his royal friend : he was baptized by S. Chad, who was then among the East Angles ; and ^Ethelwald stood his sponsor with great joy. The good King did S. ETHELDREDA. 207 ot long survive this labour of love^ and was sue- ceded by his nephew Adulf, or Aldulf, the son of S. Luna. The daughter of the latter, R.edburga, Abbess t Repingdune, or Rep ton, lived in holy friendship dth S. Guthlac, the famous Abbat of Croyland. S. Etheldreda, in the meantime, had found a leasant seclusion in the Isle of Ely. It was not lien a region of wild morasses, as it now is ; its 3rtility and agreeableness were at that time well nown ; and at a later period it was celebrated for :s vineyards, as well as corn-fields. Here she dwelt a a happy and holy retreat for about five years ; ut it was God's will that she should again struggle dth the violence and temptations of the world, igfrid, King of Northumberland, demanded her Land ; and reasons of policy induced ^thelwald to Lsten to his suit. Egfrid was the son of that Oswy f whom we have already spoken. Etheldreda, hough not without great reluctance, consented ; but ►nly on the condition that, as before, the marriage hould merely be nominal, and a matter of state jrangement. On this subject she had before con- ulted S. Wilfrid, that famous Northern Prelate, and lad received his sanction in the step which she was ibout to take. But Egfrid was a prince of very different character rom Tonbert, and Etheldreda's life was embittered by lis reproaches and violence. Her great consolation vas the friendship of the ever-memorable S. Cuthbert: 208 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. for whom, it is said, she wrought a stole and maniple with her own hands. In process of time the King hecame convinced that the union formed between them was not for the happiness of either ; and, in compli- ance with the earnest prayers and tears of Etheldreda, he gave his reluctant consent to her taking the veil, under his aunt, S. Ebbe, at Coldingham. She had not, however, long taken up her abode in that con- vent, and had but begun to taste the sweets of that life for which she had so long sighed, when she received intelligence that the King was about to Ik bring her back by force to his palace. The venerable (1 Ebbe advised immediate flight ; and with her two o companions, Sewenna and Sewarra, the Virgin Queen o set forth on her pilgrimage. Crossing the Humber, she came to Wintringham, and remained for some time h in a neighbouring village which the historian calls o Alftha. Hence, says the legend, she proceeded '\ southward through Lincolnshire, till, weary with her jl journey, she sat down in a pleasant nook, and fell i asleep. She had planted her pilgrim's staff at her i head, and, on waking, found it had grown into a shady tree, and had protected her, during her repose, from the rays of the sun. At length she arrived in the Isle of Ely, which, having been settled on her by her first husband, Tonbert, still remained hers. The chroniclers of the Abbey are full of dehght at the name of the spot, Elge : which, by a mixture of Greek and Hebrew S. ETHELDREDA. 209 iterpretation, they make to signify, the Land of rOD. We may smile at their philology, if we will ; nly let us admire the truth of their philosophy. And here Etheldreda, gathering around herself a and of devoted maidens, laid the foundation of that Lbbey which became afterwards so illustrious. She uilt a church for their devotions ; the fame of the stablishment spread far and wide ; and finally, in he year 6/3, she commenced the building of a lonastery for the use, — as the fashion of those arly times often was, — both of men and women. )n this she spent all that she had ; and in her deeds f love she was assisted by the vigilance and prudence f her faithful steward, Ovinus. About four miles from the City of S. Etheldreda, vhen you approach it, not as she did, a pilgrim and in foot, but in the whirl and hurry of a rapid railway, our eye will be caught by a grove of trees to your eft, and above them a shapely spire. It is the hurch of S. James at Stretham. Here was the pitaph of the good Ovinus : and it may still be seen, tuccm ®uam (©biito iJa Mtn^ & rtquicm. ^mm. jivE, O Lord, Thy Light and Rest to )VINUS. S. Wilfrid, on hearing of the progress that the lew Abbey was making, hastened to Ely, and gave ^bbatial consecration to S. Etheldreda. Henceforth ler life was peace. She delighted in becoming the lervant of all ; preceding them in nothing but in the T 2 210 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. painful march by which they sought to enter the Heavenly Kingdom. And in her own family new comforts awaited her. Wulfhere, King of Mercia, who had married, as I said, Ermenild, the niece of the Abbess of Ely, had shewn himself a benefactor to the Church in his life, (for he founded the glorious Abbey of Peter- borough,) and had departed in peace. On this, Werburga, his daughter, put herself under the spiritual direction of her great aunt: and was honoured by being to Mercia what Etheldreda was to East Anglia. Thither came also S. Sexburga, now a widow, and S. Ermenild. For seven years this family of love prepared them- selves and each other for an heritage with the more glorious Family of Heaven; but then the Abbess was seized with the complaint that was to terminate her earthly existence. It was a painful swelling of the neck ; and she acknowledged it a just punishment for the pride she had formerly taken in wearing necklaces. The physician Kinefrid, by lancing it, produced some alleviation of the symptoms. But the improvement lasted two days only ; on the third, which was the twenty-third of June, 679, after having called the whole congregation about her, and received the precious Viaticum, she went, says her biographer, from the desert of this world, with angels for her companions, into the joys of that which is to come. r S. ETHELDREDA. 211 1 It was not, however, on that day, that her princi- pal feast in England was held. On the seventeenth 3f October, in the same year, her remains were trans- ferred, in the presence of S. Wilfrid and many others, from their temporary resting place, to their more durable shrine in the church of S. Mary, which S. Etheldreda had herself built : and there they became illustrious by a long series of miracles. To her succeeded S. Sexburga ; and, in their turn, S. Ermenild, and S. "Werburga. Under these holy \bbesses the Monastery retained the first fervour of its sanctity ; after their departure its zeal and piety declined ; till, in the year 866, it was destroyed in an invasion of the Danes, and not restored as a nunnery. But, by the piety of King Edgar, and the zeal of S. Ethel wold, it was, in 970, endowed with extensive privileges, and refounded as a Benedictine Monastery. And, more than two centuries later, the Abbat of the original foundation was constituted a Bishop, and endowed with a Diocese taken out of the immense See of Lincoln. VIRGI?^ AND ABBESS. A.D. 770. TF we may trust the semi-infidel historians of the last century, and the worldly-wise writers of this, the eighth, ninth, and tenth ages are a blank in the history of mankind. A gross darkness had sunk down over the whole world ; barbarism and ignorance every where prevailed ; superstition was at its height ; learning was not. Lamentations on the then state of Europe can make a Robertson almost eloquent, and a Hume almost pathetic ; it is the staple of the writers of the march of intellect, it is the never-failing theme of Protestantism in the nineteenth century. Am I going to contradict this character ? In one sense, certainly not. It was not an age of profane learning. You might, I dare say, have gone from Italy to England, and found not a scholar that had a passable knowledge of Greek ; many Priests might S. OPPORTUNA. 213 robably be no more acquainted with Latin than ^as necessary for the understanding of their breviaries nd their Bibles. Nor should I be surprised if liere were many knights and barons that could not mte, and some even that could not read. Arts nd sciences, too, I must confess, were at a very low bb. Alas ! there were no mechanics' institutes ; here were no steam engines ; there were no rail- ways ; there were no national schools ; there were 10 scientific and philosophical lectures ; except in nonasteries, there were no books. The world con- rived to exist without such things. It is a strange act ; but it did. Then, in the name of common sense, asks a lineteenth-century-man, what was there ? I might answer that there were many studies ■vhich, to any one pretending to learning, were then ibsolutely necessary ; but which now are forgotten, )r held in contempt. I doubt much whether they svho lament so pitifully over mediseval darkness vould not, could we bring those ages back again, le pointed out for ignorance, and ridiculed for stupidity. There are questions which every Benedic- ine novice could have answered, but which it would puzzle the self-styled lights of the modern world, [ shrewdly suspect, to solve. You, the philosopher }f the day, may indeed tell me that they are use- less and frivolous questions. They may be so in your judgment ; and would not those which exercise your 214 LIVES OP VIRGIN SAINTS. ingenuity have seemed equally frivolous to the ecclesi- astiek of the tenth century ? I trow yes. I can im- agine such an one as S. Virgil of Salzburg, or S. Neot of Cornwall, could they be for a moment called from the abodes of the Blessed, to address you thus : — " Iti is true that you have pushed the intellect of man to a pitch of which we had no idea ; that you can pro- duce, by means of which we knew nothing, effects which to us would have seemed miraculous; that you have accomplished speed which, save for spirits, we should have deemed impossible — power which by man we should have thought unattainable ; that by your telescopes you have discovered systems of which we had no idea — by your compass have colonized lands of which we never heard ; that you have laid down the laws for the revolutions of the planets — can tell their size, and their distance, and have reduced that to an intelligible harmony which to us seemed a sublime discord. But who is there among you that, for all this, can compete with the ages of faith ? By a superior knowledge of medicine, you may have wrought surprising cures : we healed the sick with a word. You boast to have discovered a better treatment for lunatics : we cast out devils with the sign of the Cross. You, by the labour of months, have turned the stream of rivers with your embankments : we altered their course in a moment by prayer. You boast of the dominion of the sea : we walked its waters dryshod. You tunnel through the S. OPPORTUNA. 215 V tubborn mountain : we cast it from its place by a I ommand. You have antidotes for venom : we, if ) e drank any poisonous thing, were not hurt by it. L'ou imagine that you have brought philology to I perfection: we had the gift of tongues. You have anning enough to doubt : we had wisdom enough 0 believe. We willingly give up to you your know- edge and your scepticism — give us only our power nd our faith." In fact, it was just during these very centuries hat the Church was developing her wonderful and aost heavenly system. Not a year passed without nore deeply engraving on the Rock of S. Peter's confession some lovely observance, or giving birth to ome new rite, which should teach the ignorant and omfort the afflicted. She was hallowing lonely aountains by the vigils and the tears of hermits ; he was consecrating ancient rivers by some tale of aith or love ; she was planting chapels on the wild Up-crag, and the sweet summer valley of England ; he was assembling men in cities around her glorious bbeys ; she was claiming, by the musick of her bells, he various hours of the day for God ; she was giving :race and tenderness to the relations of domestic life ; he raised wedded love by exalting Matrimony into , Sacrament : still higher did she exalt Celibacy ; ,nd thence, by a seeming contrariety, came chivalry nd the romance of knightly aiFection. She con- ecrated the memory of the dead by making it a 216 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. pledge of the Communion of Saints ; it was for thi that she hung flowers on the grave, that she erectci the Cross in the churchyard, that she lit the taper ii the phanal, that she left on All Souls' Eve a vacan place by the hearth, a vacant seat at the board, fo those that had departed in the preceding year. Sh was with the peasant in his rude games ; she wa with the leper in his lazar-house ; she went with thi! knight to the field ; she sat with the monarch in hi: court. And all this, the birthright and heritage o the Church from the beginning, was wrought int( form, and received its final beauty in these " dark' centuries. Do we desire that they should return ? Tha were foolish ; for it cancel be ; and as wrong ai foolish ; for superior knowledge in itself is a blessing God forbid that we should imagine so weakly of th( Church, as to think that, ere she can recover he lost sway, civilisation must go back, and ignorance- even of worldly learning — prevail. Were she a union with herself, she would need nothing. Had sh* the saints of Mediaeval times, she must needs hav( their power. These two are the secrets wherein he great strength lieth. Her influence, indeed, couk not be exerted in precisely the same manner. He] Prelates, for instance, could not, from the grea increase of human knowledge, be chancellors anc judges. Nor did she ever seek for these worldlj honours : they were forced upon her, and she ac S. OPPORTUNA, 217 cepted them : and perchance, in accepting them, the Immaculate Bride lost something of the freshness, if not of the whiteness, of her robes. Again, she may not return to some of the manifestations of her hidden teaching which she then employed. These things may vary in an immutable Church. If you will look at the rising and the setting sun, you will trace a constant rule of difference in the arrangement of the clouds wherewith they raise for themselves a shrine of glory. At morning they are w^ell defined and stationary ; bank behind bank, as it were, of brightness ; strong, massy, and compact. But at evening you see precipitous mountains, and golden woods ; rivers of living green, and ports that remind you of the Everlasting Haven ; clouds, laden with the hues of all precious stones, come sailing west- ward ; sun-rays shoot up through broken ravines of vapour, and the night-clouds seem bursting with their inward brightness. Both these are beautiful ; and who would wish them to be the same ? How this is to be wrought, how the worldliness and hardness of men is to be changed into faith anc softened into holy tenderness, who shall tell ? With men this is impossible ; but not with God ; for with God all things are possible. It is almost beyond our power to imagine the faith of the ruder ages carried out in our own. In looking at those cen- turies, we seem to think that with their language and art and buildings has vanished their saintliness- u 218 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. In His own good time the Head of the Church will shew us the contrary. Our present subject throws us into the tumults of the eighth century. The East was menaced by the advancing arms of the Caliphs; and the once fair Patriarchates of Antioch and Alexandria groaned under the yoke of the Infidels. But just recovered from the disputes and persecutions of the Monothe- lite controversy, by the decision of the sixth (Ecu- menical Council, that our Lord Jesus Christ had Two Wills, a Human and a Divine, the Church began to be infested by the fury of the Iconoclast Emperors of Constantinople. Images of the Cruci- fied and of His Blessed Mother were publickly ex- posed to be trodden under foot ; and woe to them that refused to be guilty of so horrible a profanity. Leo and his yet more worthless son, Constantine Copronymus, raged against the custom of the Church ; S. John Damascene, the last Eastern Father, under- took the defence of images, and poured forth the stream of his eloquence in demonstrating the profit to be derived from them, as the letters of the igno- rant, and the inciters to devotion of the better in- structed. In the West, the Lombards harassed and threatened Rome ; the Pontiffs appealed, and not unsuccessfully, to the piety of the French Kings ; and Pepin and Charlemagne repressed the violence and the perfidy of Didier. S. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, after thirty-six years of a missionary- S. OPPORTUNA. 219 episcopate, went Home by a glorious Martyrdom ; Venerable Bede taught the Monks of England by word and by example. S. Gregory of Utrecht brought in Friesland to the Fold of the Church ; the Drave and the Danube heard the pastoral exhor- tations of S. Virgil. Towards the latter end of the century two wounds, from which she has not even yet recovered, were inflicted on the Church. The one was the Second Council of Nicsea, where the adoration of Images was established, and which, in spite of the violent opposition of France and other kingdoms of the West, came gradually to be con- sidered the Seventh CEcumenical Synod. The other was the forgery of the false decretals of Isidore ; or father, their insertion in the collection of Enguerran, and recognition by the whole Latin Church. By these it was that the See of Rome arose so rapidly on the ruins of Episcopal power ; an event which, however much overruled by God in the succeeding ages for good, that Rome might be the succour of the friendless, and the appeal of the persecuted, could not but, in the course of time, bring with it its own ill consequences and punishment. In days like these was her lot cast, of whom we are now to write. Her chronicler, S. Adelelm, Bishop of Seez, is one of those delightful biographers of the middle ages, who tells all that he knew of the vir- tues, and all that he has heard of the miracles, of the subject of his biography, without fearing the 220 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS, sneer of incredulity, or the pity of the so-ealled philosopher. He writes of a Saint ; and he writes like a Saint ; and he writes to the honour of the God of Saints. You may sometimes smile at his language, hut it is with a smile of love ; you may perhaps sometimes he moved to weep at his tale ; but it would he with tears of joy. S. Opportuna was born of illustrious parents, near the city of Seez in Normandy, and towards the beginning of the eighth century. At a very early age she dedicated herself to God ; and, with the consent of her parents, entered the Convent of Mon- treuil. And, ere she had been long an inmate of the House, she was, by the unanimous consent of the sisterhood, though much against her own will, called to fill the post of Abbess. At this time, her brother, S. Chrodegang, was raised to the Episcopate of Seez. In how holy friendship these two lived, how much they joyed in their holy fellowship of office, how great a comfort one was to the other, we may judge, by remarking how often it has pleased God to raise up two of His Saints in like manner for the con- solation and support each of the other. So it was with S. Ambrose and his sister S. Marcellina ; so with S. Heribert of Cologne and S. Adelaide; so with S. Francis of Assisi and S. Clara; so with S. Francisde Sales and S. Jane-Frances de Chantal . S. OPPORTUNA. 221 We will endeavour to give the History of S. lirodegang in the words of the chronicler himself : ''Now it came to pass, that while Opportuna was that convent, her venerable brother Chrodegang, isliop of the Church of Seez, did through his love the Celestial Country cast in his mind to go to ome, that he might visit the tombs of the Blessed postles, and the other holy places, and might there ray. And while he thus thought within himself, id determined to consume, in that labour, the mrse of seven years, that by toil, pilgrimage, id prayer, he might obtain the remission of his lis, he set his Church in order, and called on God ) be his Protector during such his pilgrimage, e sent moreover for a certain man, a child of the ;vil, full of all wickedness and deceit, by name lirodobcrt ; who was in times past his friend, and is moreover of his kin. And in the hearing of all, committed to him his charge and episcopate ; and ving exhorted his people, that they should stand 111 in the Lord's statutes. Blessed Chrodegang parted to Rome. " But because it is written. The hypocrite with his lutli deceiveth his friend, the said Chrodobert, ing of duty bound to defend his flock, became thcr their oppressor and devourer. And setting nought the decrees of the ancient fathers, and e institutions of the Canons, he caused himself, the lifetime of Chrodegang, to be ordained Bishop V 2 222 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. of the Church of Seez. And thus, having receivec no lawful benediction, but rather filled with th Divine malediction, he behaved himself as an hire ling and not as a shepherd, serving Mammon rathe than God. But Opportuna, grieving for the miserie and calamities of the afflicted Church, continuall; besought the Lord that He would restore he brother safe and sound into it. And in the seventl year He brought Chrodegang to his people, am after that He had purified him, exalted him, b the Crown of Martyrdom, to the Kingdom c Heaven, and delivered His elect out of the hand c Chrodobert. " Now when the Bishop returned, he heard fror many of the wickedness of the hypocrite. An remembering that it is said. Do good to them th? hate you, and pray for them that evil entreat yoi he besought the Lord earnestly, that He woul pardon the sins of Chrodobert. After this, t warned him, by gentle speeches and kind mei sages, through his friends, to give over that his s wicked attempt. For, till that time, he was m willing to return to his Church of Seez ; but lest 1 should seem to give place to the devil, turned asic to the Convent, where his sister served God nigl and day. " In the mean season, the messenger of God' Prelate did his errand to the tyrant, who, feigning i rejoice thereat, made answer on this sort : KnoTi S. OPPORTUNA, 223 Dcloved father, that men, coming from far countries, bare witness of your death ; but since you are returned safe and sound, take again your dignity, md long enjoy it. And as it is not seemly that two Bishops should be in one See, and I must therefore depart, let us first, as in old times, speak the words of friendship and charity. Now his sister was with Chrodegang when the message came ; and being filled with the spirit of prophecy, she answered, saying : My brother, his words are softer than oil, and yet be they very swords. And they both know- ing that the time drew nigh when Chrodegang must be called from this world, and that God willed him, by the effusion of his blood, to be joined to the number of holy Martyrs and Bishops, he began, like a good shepherd, to go forth, if so be that he might lay down his life for the sheep committed to him by God. " Now Chrodobert had with him an evil man, the spiritual son of Blessed Chrodegang, who had raised him from the Font ; and to him he promised gold and silver, horses and lands, if he would slay the Bishop. On a certain day, then, when Chrodegang was going to the Convent at Alemannicse, that he might converse with his own relation, the venerable Lauthild, on spiritual matters, the son of Belial^ even Chrodobert, beheld him through a window ; and calling the son of Chrodegang, he bade him do his work without loss of time, if he would earn his 224 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. reward. He then willingly set forth, and came t the Bishop, who, knowing his craft, said with . serene countenance : What is this, my son ? Wha evil thoughts be they that disturb thy soul Knowest thou not that I am thy spiritual fathe Chrodegang ? But do what the Will of the Lori suffereth. The daring sinner besought the Bisho] to kiss him. Then the glorious Chrodegang, raising his eyes to Heaven, and knowing that the hour o his death was at hand, prayed unto the Lord, anc said : Lord Jesu, merciful Redeemer, receive m] spirit, which Thou gavest me, and preserve the flock, which Thou didst commit to my care. Would thai I might reign with them in Heaven, for whom ] doubt not that I shall suffer here on earth! And when he perceived that his prayer was heard, in the simplicity of his heart he gave to his murderer the kiss of peace, who drew his sword, and smote the holy Bishop twice on the head. And thus this good shepherd, our Chrodegang, finished his life on earth, and his spirit was joined to the choir of angels in Heaven on the 3rd day of September. He that was found faithful in a few things, is now made ruler over many things. The murderer was seized on the same spot by the devil, and thus both lost the reward of his crime, and quickly went down into hell. And Chrodobert, the author of the calamity, perished in short time after by the stroke of the Divine vengeance ; for he cannot die well that hath lived ill." S. OPPORTUNA, 225 t Thus far the Chronicler. S. Chrodegang is com- morated at Seez on the day of his martyrdom. His icks were kept, partly in the church of S. Martin- s-Champs, at Paris, and partly, till the dissolution monasteries, in the priory of L'isle Adam. S. Opportuna, on being informed of her brother's ath, offered an earnest prayer that she might be mitted to dwell with him where he then was : eing that it is written. Behold how good and joyful thing it is for brethren to dwell together. And en, apparently with her nuns, she set forth to the ene of his Martyrdom, and with her own arms re his body to its resting-place in Montreuil. It was after this that Opportuna was endued with e power of working miracles. And she remained r a year fervent in spirit, rejoicing with them that joiced, weeping with them that wept, and having r conversation in Heaven. Before the anniversary her brother's departure, she prayed earnestly that le might be taken out of this world. And at length, lling the sisters around her, she exhorted them to duties of their station ; and the brief broken 3ntences in which S. Adelelm relates her words, are 16 best proof of the care with which he had gleaned lem from the tradition of Montreuil. She concluded y praying the sisterhood that, when on the twelfth ay from that time she should have departed, they ould bury her by the side of Christ's constant lartyr, Chrodegang. 226 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. It was a fever that opened to her the gate o immortaUty. Comforted in her decease by thi appearance of Blessed Spirits, she quietly departe( on the 22nd day of April, 770. And on that da; she is commemorated by the Churches of Seez am Paris. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ VIRGINS AND MARTYRS; A.D. 851. WITH Columfia, VIRGIN AND MARTYR. A.D. 853, T is time that we turn our thoughts towards that new and tremendous enemy of the Church, ahometanism. While we have heen sojourning ith S. Etheldreda at Ely, or in sunny France with Opportuna and S. Gertrude, the new Impostor IS arisen in Arabia ; his armies have poured them- Ives over the East ; have wrested the fairest of her )mains from the Throne of Constantinople, and lousands of apostate souls from the One Fold of le Church. Of the four Eastern Patriarchates, lexandria, and Antioch, and Jerusalem, bowed to 228 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the yoke of the invaders; Carthage, not so ver long rescued from the Vandahc tyranny, was agaii and for ever, severed from the Roman empire. Ad though, for the present, repulsed at Constantinopl and successfully resisted by Italy, they had wo their way into Spain, and had there established kingdom which was to endure for many centuries. Now it is to be remembered, that the genius ( Mahometanism was not persecution. Those wh( having been followers of the Impostor of Mecci embraced the True Faith, were punished with death but conquered Christians were subject only to a fint and, in many instances, to distinction by a peculif dress, and other annoyances. Preaching, howeve or writing against the False Prophet was a capit crime. , After the conquest of Spain, and the first indi; criminate ravage consequent thereupon, the Chri; tians suffered little till the middle of the nint century. But then the great persecution of Cordon had its rise under the following circumstances. . priest, by name Perfectus, had been tempted 1 deny Christ ; and was eager to offer all the repar.- tion in his power for that foul apostacy. The oj portunity soon presented itself. Passing throng the city of Cordova, one day, some Mussulman with whom he was acquainted, demanded his opinio of Mahomet, as compared with the Saviour of tl World ; and his courageous answer sufficed to ser SS. FLORA, BIARY, AND COLUMBA. 229 im to prison, as his constant confession did to exe- iition. John, a merchant, was accused of having lasphemed Mahomet ; and, as the witnesses were nable to convict him of that offence against the iwy the cadi caused him to be cruelly scourged, in rder that he might deny the Faith. Continuing onstant, he was exposed to public insult, and ommitted to prison. Thus far the Spanish Church had behaved with le prudence as well as the zeal of Primitive Times. Tie case, in the persecution that followed, would ppear to be different. We have a full and exact ecount of the whole from the pen of S. Eulogius, imself one of the Confessors, and a Priest. As soon as the end of S. Perfectus became known 1 the neighbourhood of the city, the monks began ) come down from the mountains, and to solicit the onour of Martyrdom. This self-exposure was (as e shall have occasion to notice, when we come to rite of the Persecution in Cochin China,) strongly ondemned by the Early Church, and that princi- ally on three grounds. It was forbidden by the AviouR, both by word and example ; it was a mpting of God ; and it was provoking the heathen lagistrate to the commission of sin. And if this isapprobation applied to the Roman, much more, iirely, to the Mahometan, persecutions. In the )rmer, it was necessary but to profess Chris- anity ; in the latter, (except in the case of rene- X 230 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. gades,) public derision of, or railing on, the False Prophet, was also required. Nevertheless, in allj ages Martyrdom was courted by a few; — and we have already commemorated S. Eulalia's voluntary appearance before the pr8efect,and consequent passion Isaac, a monk at Tabani (the place is variously spelt) was the first to come forward. This mon i astery was (like that of which we have spoken at, Ely) double ; men and women there served God. It was, says S. Eulogius, about seven miles to the north of Cordova, among craggy precipices and path- less woods : and was highly famed for the sanctity of its inhabitants. His example was followed by many others ; insomuch that the Mussulmans them- selves, terrified at the great number of Christians, did all in their power to stop the persecution. By our laws," they said, "he that blasphemes Ma- homet must die ; but we have no desire to shed blood. We implore you for your own sakes, and foi ours, to be content with the toleration that you enjoy ; and not to force us to extremes from which we recoil.'^ But such remonstrances were useless; and the prisons were soon full. Flora was the first maiden who braved the danger. Her mother was a Christian ; but her father, who was dead, had been a follower of Mahomet, and her brother still professed that religion. She had been carefully educated by her mother, who originally SS. FLORA, MARY, AND COLUMBA. jame from Seville, but then lived at a village about ight miles from Cordova ; and the first sign that he gave of extraordinary firmness was her rigour xnd perseverance in the Lent Fast. When the per- Beeution broke out, however, she was unwilling to expose herself to danger ; and seldom joined the issembUes of the Christians. But it was observed to her that, if some were too forward, this was to be too backward in confessing Christ; and that to ibstain from the assenibling of His people, through fear of her brother, was, in fact, to deny Him before men. On this, with her sister, she left her home, md took refuge in a convent at no great distance. We are not informed how it happened that this aehgious House could offer a secure asylum to the fugitives ; but they appear to have been in perfect safety. The brother, in revenge, threw some of the dergy in the neighbouring villages into prison. On which Flora, hastening home, presented herself oefore him : — " It is I whom you seek," she said ; ^^here I am; and I am ready to suffer all things for the Name of Christ." Her brother endeavoured to win her over by fond- ness ; that failing, he had recourse to threats and even to blows. But finding these ineffectual, he carried her before the cadi, to whom he truly asserted that, having formerly professed the religion of Ma- homet, his sister had afterwards embraced the behef of the Christians. Flora seems, through weakness. 232 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. to have denied the former part of his statement ; she had always, she said, heen, and she hoped always to continue, a follower of the Crucified. This account was not entirely false. Flora, as we shall see presently, had been eight years a Christian; and supposing her to have attained the age of fifteen, she had always, i.e, since she had been in the condition choose for herself, been a follower of Christ. But the subterfuge is not to be justified, and the fault was nobly repaired. The cadi, full of indignation, directed two soldiers to extend her arms at full length, and caused her to be so severely beaten, that the skull was laid bare. In this condition she was given into her brother's hands, who promised that she should be carefully tended, and, on her re- covery, instructed in the Law of the Prophet. But, in a few days, she contrived to escape ; and leaving Cordova by night, she retired to a village called Ossaria, where her sister joined her. But she was not at rest ; the desire of atoning by Martyrdom for her weakness had taken full pos- session of her. She returned to the city ; and entered the church of S. Acisclus, himself a Spanish Martyr, where she was earnest in prayer that she might be strengthened for her approaching trial. While she was thus engaged, Mary, a Christian Virgin of Cordova, entered the same church, and for the same purpose. She had been deeply attached to her brother, byname Valabonses, — a deacon, and one SS. FLORA, MARY, AND COLUMBA. 233 >f the Martyrs ; and now earnestly desired to tread Q his steps. The two maidens were not long in onfiding to each other their hopes and views ; and hey resolved to bear each other company in their loly enterprise. It would appear that Mary was onsiderably the elder of the two, for the deacon, \^e are told, had been accustomed to look up to her ; vhile Flora, it would seem, was yet in her earliest ;irlhood. We shall find a most remarkable parallel 0 this whole story in the persecution of Cochin ]hina ; which, indeed, in many respects itself esembles that of Cordova. The two friends presented themselves before the adi. " I am she,^' said Flora, " whom you lately courged, on the charge of having been a renegade rom your religion. Hitherto I have had the weak- less to conceal myself ; but now I boldly declare fiyself to be a worshipper of God, and an abhorrer f your False Prophet." " I, " added Mary, " had brother among the Confessors ; I also, like him, cknowledge Christ." The cadi, for the present, ommitted them to prison, in company with certain mm en of abandoned life. S. Eulogius was also, at this time, in prison ; and lc had to contend as well against cold friends as ^arm enemies. For a Bishop, named Reccafride, tad openly declared against the Martyrs ; decrying beir presumption, and denying them a just claim to lie title. At his instigation, Eulogius, then one of X 2 234 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the most celebrated Doctors of the school of Cor- b dova, together with the Prelate of that See, were \^ committed to prison, as encouragers of voluntary P confessorship. f Here he wrote his Exhortation to Martyrdom, p which still exists, and which is addressed to Flora S^' and Mary. Not that they shrunk back from thtf thorny path that they had chosen ; but that the f bravest soldier of Christ may well be thankful for jt a timely word of exhortation. Called again before f the cadi, they found the brother of Flora present, f "Whence is it," demanded the magistrate, *'thatt your brother is firm in our religion, while you are a Christian?" "Eight years ago," she replied, "Iji followed the error of my fathers ; but God hath enlightened me to perceive the verity of the Christian p Faith, and for it I am resolved to lay down my life." j^l "And what," pursued the cadi, "are your present jsl thoughts on the subject of which I formerly spoke *k to you?" "That your prophet is an impostor,"^ returned Flora ; " whatever reproaches I spoke IS against him then, I am ready to repeat, and to in- jtl crease, now." On which the two Confessors were t carried back to gaol, where they were visited by d Eulogius, who consoled them under the approaching ^ prospect of death, and received from their lips the ( account of what had passed. ' Some days subsequently, order was given for their execution. They were carried to the place of punish- 2 SS. FLORA, MARY, AND COLUMBA. 23§ lent, where they knelt down, and made the sign of le Cross ; and so received the stroke which, sever- ig their heads from their hodies, united their souls ) Him Whom they had loved. Their remains lay lat day exposed to the dogs ; on the morrow they ere thrown into the river. The hody of S. Mary as recovered, and interred in the same monastery 'om which she had gone forth to her Crown, 'uteclar. The remains of S. Flora were never 3und ; but they will not be less glorious in the Day f the Lord's Appearing. [Nov. 24, 851.] The persecution continued that year, and the vhole of the next ; the ardour of the Christians ncreasing with the cruelty of the Infidels. Abder- ^ma, the Moorish emperor, at length published an diet in which it was ordered that all Christians hould be imprisoned, and that immediate death hould be inflicted on all who spoke evil of Maho*- net. This gave rise to many apostacies ; and iolent disputes prevailed amongst those who held irm in the Faith. Some defended and applauded he Martyrs ; others denounced their zeal as indis- creet, and as exposing their weaker brethren to the langer of falling away. The emperor was per- suaded to allow a Council to be summoned at Cordova, where, Eulogius, now at liberty, was made :he subject of much personal invective. It was afterwards noticed, that he who spoke most warmly against Eulogius, became, from the fear of losing a 236 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. lucrative situation, a more zealous Mussulman than he had ever heen a Christian. But nothing was de- 1 5 cided by the assembled Prelates ; for, urged on the ■ one side by the fear of Abderama, on the other, by the dread of scandalizing the zealous, they promul- gated, — to their dishonour be it spoken, — a decree so cautiously worded, that while its obvious signifi- cation contented the Emperor, its designed meaning \ « satisfiied the Martyrs. Eulogius protested against the resolution as unworthy of Christian Prelates. Abderama did not long survive this Council. Walking on one of the terraces of his palace, and 1 1 giving orders that the bodies of some that had |r suffered should be buried, he was struck with a sudden disease, and died that night. Mahomet, his son and successor, continued the persecution. The Monastery of Tabani was, as we have said, double ; Martin, a man of great piety, presided over ! the part of the building appropriated to men ; his sister Elizabeth over the women's house. Elizabeth i was married, and, with her husband Jeremiah, had | been the founder of this monastery ; and then, agree- ' ing to separate, they each served God in their own foundation. The Abbess had a younger sister, by j name Columba; and she early shewed a desire to follow in the steps of her sister and brother-in-law. Her mother was much opposed to this resolution: the more so, that several advantageous offers had been made for the hand of her daughter. On her SS. FLORA, MARY, AND GOLUMBA. eath, Columba embraced tbe monastick life; and 'tired to Tabani. No long time afterwards this religious house was lined by the Mussulmans ; and the sisterhood re- red to a dwelling which they had purchased in ordova, near the church of S. Cyprian. Their re- loval to such a place may appear singular :— it has een accounted for on the grounds that Mahomet as anxious, not to destroy, but to conyert, the hristians of his dominions ; and to this end he was illing to encourage their settling in his capital, here he conceived that it would be easier to ring them over to Mahometanism than while they imained in their native wilds. Here, then, Columba dwelt some little time. But, ot without supernatural directions, as it is said, she ft the monastery secretly, went to the house of the idi, professed Christ, and spoke evil of Mahomet, he cadi, touched by the beauty of her person and le sweetness of her demeanour, endeavoured to laage her resolution ; and, to this end, presented er before a council of magistrates and other prin« [pal persons of the city. That she remained firm, certain ; that the words which Eulogius put into er mouth are rather his own than hers,— or at least lat they are much dressed out, seems probable, he was hurried out before the palace and a place aving been cleared for execution, the headsmars ras instantly summoned. The Martyr wore a simple 238 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. dress of linen; and the spectators, and her very( judges, seemed to regard her with awe, and treated her with reverence. She made the executioner a present; and with great calmness kneeling down^ received the hlow that set her free. Her body was not, like those of the other Martyrs, exposed to puhlick view ; it was taken up as it was, fastened toi a wicker vessel, and committed to the river. [Sept. 17, 853.] Six days afterwards it was discovered whole and untouched, and interred in the church oi S. Eulalia at Eragolla. (The situation of the place is unknown to Spanish writers.) S. Columba is the most celebrated Virgin Martyr of Spain. We say nothing now in explanation ol her self-offer, because we reserve the subject foi another occasion. S. Euiogius, her biographer, survived her about I five years and a half. Elected to the Archbishoprickli of Toledo, he administered the Sacrament of Baptism ' to a Moorish maiden, Leocritia, whom he assisted to. reach a place of safety, where she might openly pro^j fess the True Faith. For this he was arrested ; and suffered with great meekness and constancy, March 11, 859. iv* «v|y» •'\jv» •^jb/* "^JV* *>/V* *\D^ VIRGIN AND MARTYR. A.D. 925. ^HERE was perhaps no feature which more ad- vantageously distinguished the rehgion of the reeks and Romans from the idolatry of other agans, than the reverence which they felt for, and le worship which they paid to, the Idea of Beauty, he places which Athenian lore held most sacred, arnassus, and Delphi, and the woods of Dodona, and le spring of Helicon, were just those, which were the veliest scenes of the lovely land of Greece. Hence leir bards derived their inspiration: hence their lythology its embellishments. A perpetual vision f beauty haunted the master-minds of those ages : f beauty, severe, stern, and simple; their poets, leir painters, their sculptors, strove after this great lea, and each, in his various way, gave it expression, nd enabled it to be appreciated by inferior minds. 240 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. And yet,— it is no less strange than true, — the loveliness of scenery engaged little, or nothing, of the attention of Grecian poetry. Such a thing as the description of a particular landscape might almost be sought in vain. Intent upon the abstract idea, Athenian and Roman bards lost sight of its concrete expression; and even in those works which would seem most to call for such embellishments, there is little or no reference to local scenery. Where it is introduced, is in the latter ages of the two nations, more especially in that of Greece : as in the brief and graphic touches of the pastoral poet, Theocritus. The Church, on the other hand, has always seized and cherished local scenery. She has hallowed it by a thousand recollections of monastick retirement and the devotion of hermits ; she has cherished the love that her children have felt for it ; and she has allowed those that renounced the world, yet to enjoy I the beauties of nature. The Cistercians, the most ^ rigid of rehgious orders, clung most closely to the loveliness of woods and the melody of streams. It is indeed one of the great distinctions between ancient and modern poetry, that the one dwells so little, the other so much, on external nature. Why this is so, has exercised no smaU ingenuity and labour to explain ; the rather that a priori we might have precisely reversed the case. That Paganism, knowing of and caring for, little beyond this world. S. GUIBORAT. 241 lould have made much of this world's loveliness, — lat Christianity, looking forward to a far more cceeding and eternal weight of glory, should have ighted it, this it would have been natural to mclude. But it was part of the deep and heavenly wisdom ' the Church, that she should trace the mysterious mnection, and, so to speak, sympathy that exists jtween the seen and the unseen world. She loves le former, assuredly not for itself, hut as a pledge id type of the latter, as at this moment influenced |r it in a marvellous and inexplicable manner, and J affording a kind of Sacramental witness to its ex- tence. It cannot be denied that external nature IS sympathised with the historical changes and re- )lutions of the human race : that fearful sights and •eat signs from heaven have accompanied wars and imours of wars on earth. Never was mankind in wilder state of confusion than at the downfall of ie Roman Empire : never were the powers of ^aven more shaken than at the same period. When le barbarous armies of the North were breaking up le social system, when Alaric and Attila were irrying devastation through the world, there were lys of unusual darkness, there were comets of un- mal brilliance, there were strange appearances of iknown stars. Again, — as little can it be denied lat, on the eve of some of those battles which have langed the state of nations, armies of fire have been Y 242 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. seen combating in the clouds, and prognosticating, by their motions, the success or defeat of the earthly combatants whom they represented. So again, there has ever been a remarkable, and surely more than natural, connection between epidemic diseases and earthquakes ; and famines are the fre- quent companions of both. It pleases our philosophy t^: to attribute these things to second and third cases ; we have recourse to electrical and galvanic phenomena, ,j and thus attempt to solve the difficulty. The ages l^i of faith looked on these things as the direct agency of evil spirits ; and thereby found an easier and a truer explanation. Indeed it would be well if we but gave a more simple and trustful attention to the words wherein the Apostle describes the enemies with whom we have to struggle; "the prince of the powers of the air, and spiritual wickedness in high places." Now, if we believe storm and tempest, the thunderbolt and the lightning, to be the direct expression and manifestation of the malignity ol Satan, we allow him, in a rational and intelligible sense, to be the prince of the powers of the air. If we believe that times of general mortality, whether of dearth, pestilence, or what is usually called 8 sickly season, are brought to pass by the immediate agency of the fallen angels, we only shew oui belief in the spiritual wickedness of high places. It is but little connected with the philosophy of dis- ease, that we find recorded in Holy Scripture ; and ; S. GUIBORAT. 243 lat little favours this view of the subject. If the aters of Egypt were turned into blood, — if there as hail and fire mingled with hail, — if there was )t an house where there was not one dead, — it was ecause He sent evil angels among them. If Job as smitten with a sore disease, it was because atan went forth from the Presence of the Lord ) afflict him. If the Lord sent a pestilence upon erusalem, it was because His Angel stretched out is sword over the city. If there fell in the Camp ■ the xissyrians an hundred and fourscore and five lousand, it was because the Angel of the Lord ent forth to destroy. If Herod was eaten of orms, and gave up the ghost, it was because the ngel of the Lord smote him. This view of the case, then, would lead us to msider every bodily sickness as a direct attack of le Evil One, no less eager to destroy the immortal )ul, than its material tenement. And this may 3rve to explain why gifts of healing are said to )me immediately from the Holy Ghost. For as ar Blessed Lord and Saviour was manifested, lat He might destroy the works of the Devil, — estroy them, that is, in their source and fountain, ) that His people, like Jonathan's armour-bearer, light be able to slay after him, — so it is the imme- iate office of the Holy Ghost, to carry on by leans of the Church a perpetual warfare to the end f time with the devices and instruments of Satan^ 241 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. whether he seek to oppress the body, or to tyrannize I over the soul. And hence the anointing of the sick, still retained under the title of Extreme Unction. We have not, though we may have seemed to do so, wandered from our subject. For if we believe that the great end and aim of our lives is to follow our dear Master in destroying the works of the Devil, i whether in ourselves or in others, whether tem- porally or spiritually, much more readily, and no less truly, may we believe that the great comfort of our hope and support of our faith is the Communion which, by means of visible objects, we hold with I invisible and most Blessed Spirits. If the heathens I' peopled their woods and streams with Fauns and Nymphs — if they connected the appearance of these sylvan creatures with frenzy and lunacy, so that a ^ madman was said by the Greeks to be nymph-struck, ' and the word panic" has descended to our own days — if the rude and half-christianized Saxons colonised solitary places with fairies, still giving them an extraordinary influence over the mind, — much more may we believe that good spirits love the beauty and solitude of mountains and deep forests, and are there ready to speak to those that are willing to hear. For it is most likely that, in Pagan lands, those wild places may have even been haunted by evil spirits, sometimes permitted to appear in a bodily though not a human shape — just as Satan presented himself to S. Antony in the wilderness, i S. GUIBORAT. 245 nd would fain have troubled the departure of ». Martin of Tours. In visiting, then, the mountain, or the ravine, the ummer forest, or the mighty sea-clifF, it were well 0 remember that we may be, in very deed, going up 0 a House of Angels : yea, in this sense also, to be ;lad when they say unto us, We will go into the louse of the Lord. Thus from the hills our help aay indeed come — help to our inward and sacra- aental life — help to realize the communion that we lave with the invisible world — help in wondering at lis Glory, Whose also is the strength of the hills, indeed to those on whom God has bestowed a more special power of appreciating His works, a necessity s laid of being Catholicks ; for if not, they must be ?*antheists. But every glorious scene in nature, if mpressed with the sacramental seal of the Church, !an but draw their hearts onward to more ardent ongings for Heavenly Beauty. They will look on he wild mountains as a Temple, it is true, but in >uch a sense as the outer court of the Gentiles was a )art of the Temple at Jerusalem. The cathedral, he minster, aye, and the humble parish church, will )e their Holy Place : and their Holy of Hohes that [louse which is not made with hands, eternal in the [leavens. And if we continue the same train of thought, we nay, perhaps, be led to the right appreciation of that vhich has been in all ages so foolishly over-prized by Y 2 246 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. some, perhaps unthinkingly depreciated by others — personal beauty. Whatever value the loveliness of earthly scenery possesses, as a type of heavenly glory, it possesses, notwithstanding our knowledge that it is but for a time, and must one day perish. To say, therefore, that beauty, because short-lived, is on that account valueless, is contrary to all reasonable analogy; and Holy Church has never taught us to think so. Witness the heavenly loveliness with which she has invested her Virgin Saints ; witness tl;ie fair mould in which, for the most part, the sculptors of her purest sesthetical centuries have cast their sepulchral effi- gies ; witness her pious belief that the glorified bodies of the Just will resume that form — trans- figured, it is true, but not altered — that was theirs in the fairest and the brightest years of their earthly existence. Even in this sense. Beauty is one of those Powers of the Lord that are to praise Him and magnify Him for ever ; and, there- fore, if not to be over-valued, assuredly not to be despised. If it were only for the influence that it bestows, it is a great talent, and one which to depreciate can in no sense be to give honour to Him Who confers it. Only give it its true meaning, only make it also sacramental, only refer it to the beauty of the redeemed spirit, — and from a snare you turn it into a help, from an enemy you make it a friend. And now let us proceed to the history of her, the S. GUIBORAT. 247 lace of whose abode has suggested the foregoing boughts. ^ The Monastery of S. Gall in Switzerland, very itely, and after long years of desecration, raised to e a cathedral church, was one of the most celebrated 1 that part of Europe, and conferred on its Abbat the itle of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. One of ionks was S. Notker, famous through the Western Uhurch by one beautiful hymn. It was his wont, rom the narrow window of his cell, to watch the ;atherers of samphire, or some similar herb, as they lung half-way between heaven and earth at the side if the Alpine precipices. Touched with the sense of heir danger, he composed the celebrated anthem Medio vitcd in morte sumus (In the midst of life we ire in death), precisely as we have retained it in our uneral service. Near this Monastery, Guiborat (for io ecclesiastical annalists have latinized the German Weihrath) took refuge from the world. She was of gentle family, and was born in the atter half of the ninth century. The example of a ister led her to the determination of giving up all tor Christ. This sister, in a dream, imagined her- self transported into that Blessed Place, the delights whereof eye hath not seen, nor ear heard ; and of all its pleasures, the harmony of the Angelick Choirs impressed her with the deepest sense of beauty, rhenceforth her whole desires were fixed on being iissolved, and on being with Christ, which she was 248 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. I persuaded was far better : and He Who had been ]' pleased to bestow on her so sweet a foretaste of the unknown world did not deny her the request of her lips ; for shortly after, calling her to Himself, He prevented her, as we may piously believe, with the blessings of goodness, and set a crown of pure gold upon her head. Guiborat then resolved, while she lived in the world, to live above it, and to trample on all that it could offer. But as her father and mother were growing in years, she would not leave them in their old age, and contented herself with leading a monas- tick life in a secular habit. Her brother Hitto was then studying in the school of the xlbbey of S. Gall, and she made it a part of her business to send him, from time to time, such presents and other remem- brances as should convince him that distance had no power to change true love. Anxious also to shew her respect for the House where he was residing, she employed her skill in making, or ornamenting, covers for its Office books ; and these she despatched to the Prior and other authorities of the Monastery. In process of time, Hitto, having been admitted to Holy Orders, came to dwell with his parents. Guiborat, who had few opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of the Psalms, deeply as she felt their beauty and had drunk into their spirit, gladly availed herself of the instruction of her brother in the com- mitting them to heart ; for she could not, it appears, S. GUIBORAT. 249 3ad tliem for herself— a thing by no means wonderful 1 a German lady of the ninth century, though ertainly by no means so universal as modern pride sserts. She particularly wished to commit to memory he fifty-first Psalm ; that Psalm which equally in he dungeon, or on the throne, on the sick-bed, and he field of battle, has been the consolation of the Church's penitent children, and will be so to the end ►f time. But engaged in other occupations, Hitto ould not find the opportunity of complying with ler request ; and it needed, says the chronicler, the idmonition of a dream to oblige him to the desired ict. The beauty of her voice, and the propriety of ler choral pauses, soon rendered Guiborat an object )f remark among the Priests of her own church ; for ihe had not been hitherto noted for superiority of skill, or musical knowledge. Thine, O Christ," says the pious chronicler, " Thine are these miracles, :o Whom the dead live, the insensible are filled with tvisdom, the blind see, the dumb are eloquent : Who Liast hidden the secret treasures of Thy Wisdom from the wise and prudent of this world, and hast revealed it to babes." On the death of her parents, Guiborat persuaded her brother to accompany her on pilgrimage to Rome. Rome at that time must have presented much that was painful to a Christian eye. But one of its Bishops, from the middle of the eighth to the middle of the eleventh century, Leo lY., is reckoned 250 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. among the Saints ; and it must have been a corrupt, age that could permit, for an instant, the monstrous fable that a Pope Joan had existed in it. Now, too, or shortly after, was the unseemly feud between Formosus and his rivals ; and yet the conversion of the Bulgarians is a bright spot in this century. TcJ' Rome, however, the Virgin went ; and on her return/^i persuaded lier brother to embrace the jNIonastick Statif i in the Abbey of S. Gall. There, says the chronicled wliom we follow, Ilartmann, a Monk of the sam#! House, how modestly, how patiently, and holily htj lived, those, I think, yet survive who are able tOi remember." For six years longer S. Guiborat remained in tht^ world ; perhaps because she was willing thoroughl|^ to count the cost ere she renounced it. But i^' pleased God that she should be tried by calumny—^:^ that by the falsehood of a servant, a report that sh# led a dissolute life, should he permitted to prevail. She was brought before the Bishop of Constance. The accused and the accusers were confronted ; and ' the truth not manifestly appearing, decision was postponed till the cause should be tried by the reception of the Lord's Body to the Salvation or damnation of the a})pellant. " Be of good cheer, Guiborat," beautifully exclaims her other biographer, liepidan, also a Monk of S. Gall; "it is necessary for thee to suffer a little while with various tribula- tions, that thy faith may be more precious than gold, S. GUIBORAT. 251 loiigh it be tried with fire. He That was called the on of the Carpenter, lie That was held no prophet 3cause touched hj the woman that was a sinner, e That was believed to have a devil. He That suf- red a thousand other insults, He will also sympathise ith thy reviling. Through these things, it behoved im to enter into His Glory ; by these things, it ehoves us also to become coheirs of the same ■lory." On the appointed day, the innocence of le innocent was made manifest ; and her accuser, avered with shame, retired beyond the Lake ; and ill continuing to spread her calumnies, was struck ith madness, and so finally, says the historian, ent from death to death. In company with two tried servants she tlien led le life of an eremite in a cell near the church of George. At the end of four years she was removed 0 a cell near the Monastery of S. Magnus, and there id a life of still greater austerity. In this retreat he was joined by Rachilde, who, like herself, had evoted herself to God. The hope of freedom from long disease, through the prayers of S. Guiborat, ms her motive in sharing her cell ; gratitude for the btained mercy continued her there. This was in lie autumn of 920. The wars between Henry the Fowler and Arnold f Bavaria threatened the peace of the recluses ; and tie Monastery of S. Gall was not without its losses. 3ut Guiborat was reserved to another end. She 252 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. received a supernatural intimation that, in an inva- s sion of the Hungarians, she would be honoured with 1 1 Martyrdom ; and she laid the circumstances of the j ; case before an aged Monk, called Waldram, one 1 1 much esteemed for his prudence and his piety. The i ) report spread ; and the Abbat of S. Magnus inquired \i if his daughter would not retire, and escape the |r danger. " Be not anxious," she replied, ''about me ; in God have I put my trust, and will not fear what ,t man can do unto me. If they come about me like ; bees, they shall be extinct even as the fire among the thorns. The place where I have so long carried on i< my warfare against my ghostly enemy, shall also be ' the place of my sepulture." The parents of Rachilde were anxious that their daughter should at least ji escape, and she herself dreaded a cruel death ; but Guiborat re-assured them by the prediction that her companion would survive many years, to their consolation. y And now tidings came in of the fury of the Hun- i garian hordes : churches were burnt, and altars pro- j faned, men slain, and children led into captivity. At length they approached the Abbey of S. Magnus ; but the strength of the place, or rather the Arm of its Defender, preserved it from their violence. Searching on all sides for treasure, they lighted on the cell of S. Guiborat. What it was that provoked their rage, the chronicler does not profess to relate : — a proof that in those matters which he details he S. GUIBORAT. 253 peaks from authentick information. Three blows of he Hungarian axe stretched her senseless on the round; though, says Hepidan, it was not till the allowing morning that she went into the bosom of \.braham. Her brother, who had been lurking in n orchard hard by, and Rachilde, composed her emains ; and on the eighth day, the barbarians laving retired, they were, with much solemnity, [iterred in the Monastery of S. Magnus. Guiborat uffered on the second of May, 925. Hachilde survived her twenty-one years, and then eparted in peace. Hitto became Prior of the church f S. Magnus ; and after governing the house with Tudence, went home, says Hepidan, to the Land of le Living. IS VIRGIN AND ABBESS. AD. 1013.1 nnHERE is nothing more difficult for us, separated [ so far from them in time, so far, alas! too often f from them in feeling, than to form a true and living [ idea of an English Benedictine House. We are, onf the one hand, presented with the stale Protestant fictions of dissolute idleness and intemperate luxury:! on the other, with the more seemly, yet no less^ imaginative, emhellishments of beauty, and grace, and ^ accomplishments, among those who had dedicated} themselves to God. Beauty there indeed was, but^ that Heavenly beauty which would tell little with the* romantick imaginations of the present day : Grace,* but such as is from Heaven, not of earth : accom- plishments also, even the hardest and longest ol acquirement : accomplished victory over the passions, over worldly memories and hopes, above all, over self Let us, if it may be so, spend, in thought, one da} I S. ADELAIDE. 255 ith the inhabitants of these holy retreats : let us lix in their daily employments, and endeavour to live uong them. See ! the English village of the fourteenth century before us ! The cottages with their grey stone walls, id thatched roofs, their rose-hidden porches and iiaint chimneys, differ but little from such as we see b this day. There rises, indeed, a bluer smoke from lem on the spring evening, for wood has not, as yet, iven way to coal ; the windows are mullioned and •ansomed, and glazed diamond-wise ; and, in the •oss-way of the village street, the village Cross, lised on its octagonal base of narrowing steps, iched with Saints, and decked with tabernacle ork, rears aloft the Symbol of our Redemption into le clear air. And, nigh at hand, is the village tiurch : the grey old simple lancets in the Chancel iiriously contrast with the new east window, foliated I Decorated beauty, and blazing in storied glass. A lourner is kneeling at the church-yard Cross : raying, doubtless, for the departed soul of him, ver whose dear remains she has laid that wreath of ammer flowers. And, nigh at hand, with open door, nd dark cool hall, is the simple dwelling of the Priest. But we must pass down the village street, and long the tree-shaded lane, if we mean to visit the Id Convent of S. Cross. There it lies, at the bottom f the wooded hill, half-concealed by oak, chesnut, tid elm^ and yet fencing one side of the ascending 256 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. road with its stern, yet lovely quadrangle. Standing here, we catch only a few of the upper windows ; if we go round to the front, we shall see the strong gate, with Ahbess's parlour above, and its fair arch, and the porteress's room at the side. Were we privi- leged to enter that modest gate, we should find the cloistered quadrangle of soft turf marked here and there by the head-crosses of the departed sisterhood, and hallowed by the same holy emblem rising in the midst of the sleepers. On one side is the open chapel, on another, between it and the gate, the refec- tory. The two others are occupied by the common dormitory, and the cells for the various occupations of the Sisters. And there, whether the eastern sky was beginning to blush to the expected sun, or Orion, in his golden | armour, looked down coldly and frostily on the | January night ; there, whether the hill above was j roaring with woods and winds and waters, or the sky so clear, and the silence so intense, that the bells of the great Monastery of S. Dunstan, two leagues off, , might sometimes be heard, — there, at two o'clock in the morning, were the Community summoned to rise and praise God. How could the sister who watched unto prayer" tell the flight of those silent hours? j for too poor was the Convent of S. Cross, rich in nothing but in its church, to construct the horologe"^ * Like that, for example, now preserved in Wells Cathedral, which ^ formerly belonged to the Abbey of Glastonbury. S. ADELAIDE. 257 )f richer foundations. Sometimes it was * by watch- ng the stars : Cassiopeia must sink behind the \restern gable, the Pleiades must disappear behind he ''Abbat's Elm/' the Pointers must be in a line vith. the convent mill, and then it would be time to ise to the service of God. Or, if the sky was black vith clouds and wind, then the cock gave f almost qually faithful signal. They, who are accustomed 0 the night watches, will tell you that he crows with [ different note at the different hours of the night : iiat the first, and the second, and the third vigils lave each their own welcome. The watcher, then, hastening to the dormitory, ailed the Sisters to prayer ; either by the voice, J he squill\\ (or hand-bell), the wooden§ hammer, or y gently^ touching them. Light and short was heir sleep : holy and peaceful their rising. Spring- iig from their couches, and fortifying themselves with he sign of the Cross, — O God," they exclaimed, •make speed to save me ! O Lord, make haste ) help me Their simple attire put on, a short season followed )r mental prayer, while the chapel-bell pealed con- inually, as if reminding them that the night was waning. It must have been a pleasant sight, when * Cassian. ii. 17. t GoDESCALCUS in Vit. S. Landbert. i. 71. t Vit, S. Pachom. c. 45. || Vit. S. Benedict. Abbat. Anian. § Adolius Tarsensis, viii. 104. % S. John Chrysost. Horn. 59, in Pop. Antioch. z 2 258 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the winter-moon was looking down with cold and peaceful eye on that still quadrangle, on Cross and grave, on gable and pinnacle, to behold the sisterhood follow the Abbess to their house of prayer, where the altar was bright with its two tapers, and a silver "crown of light" illuminated the stalls of the nuns. Then began the holy office of Matins, varying with each varying festival. It seemed not long to them, when, on the greater holydays, the three Nocturns followed each other, each embracing its Psalms and its four lessons, and concluding by waking the still night with the Heavenly Te Deum. AnA by this time, in the summer months, the i light of the tapers had faded into the clear blue day; the sweet breath of flowers and dewy woods and hay found its way into the chapel ; the songs of birds were heard in the pauses of the chant; and the whistle of the labourer as he passed on to his daily , toil came pleasantly on the ear. It is just the time when all living things seem stirring themselves up to the praise of God ; and uniting with them, as taught by Holy Church, the sisterhood would then begin the office. They call on mountains and hillsj summer and winter, day and night, waters and foun- tains, sun and moon, the Priests and the servants o] the Lord, the spirits and souls of the righteous, U bless the Lord, to praise Him, and magnify Him foi ever. They summon wind and storm, the stars o: light, fruitful trees and all cedars, young men anc S. ADELAIDE. 259 maidens, old men and children, to join with them : and thns ended the Matin service of praise. Then followed a pause; and forthwith, winding from the chapel door, the recluses, for a short space, betook themselves to their apartment : some, the stronger of frame, or the more fervent in faith, to pray or to meditate ; some, to obtain the refreshment which they needed of a short interval of broken rest. And now the dew is beginning to dry on the summer pastures : the herds are already driven in for milking, the woodman's axe has long been clank- ing among the trees, the abbey mill is at work, the abbey fisherman is carrying to the lodge his wicker frail of trout, — Father Francis has already said morrow-mass in the parish church, the blacksmith is heart and soul in his noisy trade, when the merry chapel bells ring out for Prime, for it is six o'clock. At Matins, they celebrated the hour of our Saviour's apprehension ; now they go to commemorate His mocking and reviling. The Psalms of the day over, they kneel devoutly, and chant, in mournful strain, the Seven Penitential Psalms ; then follows the Benedictine Litany. And afterwards,* leaving the chapel, they congre- gate in chapter, in the eastern cloister, to listen to the martyr ology of the day. Then is the solemn record read of the knightly and ecclesiastical benefactors. * Petrus Bles. Serm, 25. 260 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. of the Abbesses, or at least of the sisters, who had on this day in past years departed to the Lord: that thus the faith of the survivors might be incited to their imitation, the love poured out in ardent prayer for their rest. ''Requiescant, " exclaimed the reader, ''in pace!'' And the united sisterhood chanted, ''Amen," Forthwith, they bring forward a parchment tome, clasped with silver, and glittering with pearls : it is the statutes of the sisterhood of S. Cross, under the rule of S. Benedict Militant. Listen while they are read: it is no vain repetition of words, no unnecessary and lifeless rite. The reader pauses ; the Abbess, in the usual form, inquires : — "If any one hath aught to say, let her speak." One of the sisters comes forward, and kneels in the midst. "What sayest thou?" inquires the Abbess. " My fault," replies the peni- tent. "Arise!" is the next command: and, standing in the midst, she makes confession of her offence against the rule, and submits to the imposed penance. And now, it is time to go forth to manual labour. Then might you see the costly frontal brought forth, — the curiously worked hood of the cope, the stole, or the maniple : and as the diligent needles marked their way with gold or gems, no idle whisper was there to be heard, no conversation that was of the earth, earthy. Unwearied in the service of God, they lightened their labour with the Psalm or the Hymn ; hallowing their work with praise, and them- S. ADELAIDE. 261 selves by their work. And even in the more menial Dffices, the same spirit shewed itself. They forgot lot, whether they ate or drank, or whatever they did, that they were Christians ; everywhere they repelled Ithe assaults of their enemies with the sign of the Cross ; everywhere they uttered the accustomed sjaculation : — "O God, make speed to save me! 0 Lord, make haste to help me !" Every word was hallowed ; every thought was His, Whose they themselves were. In the meantime, the Infirmaress was fully occu- pied ; for the village sick depended on her. Simple were the drugs she employed; and yet perchance more efficacious than those of King Edward's court physician. And why? Because the plants were gathered with prayer ; because the simple chemical preparations were carried on with prayer ; because the remedies were applied with prayer, and taken in faith. And gentler hand, and more loving heart than that of Sister Margaret, the Infirmaress, patient could not desire. The Prioress herself loved to stand by, to listen to the griefs, and as far as she might, relieve the distresses, of Christ's poor; and if the slender funds of the foundation were not sufficient for a sudden emergency, a letter to the richer House of S. Dunstan failed not to obtain the necessary relief. And when the Infirmaress acknowledged any case above her skill, or when sickness did not allow the patient to present himself in the nunnery, the quiet 262 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. palfrey of Brother Lawrence, the Infirmarer of that ji more wealthy House, (who had studied at Padua,) b would soon set him down at the sick man's door. ! But chapel-bell is again sounding ; it is the hour of Tierce. And forthwith, the office ended, the f Daily Sacrifice begins. With deep faith, with holy | hope, with ardent love, did that happy sisterhood \ behold the Lamb of God That taketh away the sins of the world. Mass over, the sisters resuming their seats waited with patience for the sound of the refection-bell. The refectory, of early English date, was one of the ( loveliest pieces of art to be seen far or near : beauti- | ful were its slender lancets, its simple vaulting i groins, its small tesselated tiles ; holy the emblems and pictures which frescoed its walls ; rich and costly , the images which looked down from the stained ' glass. On the south side, ascended by a rising arcade of steps in the wall, was a quaintly carved lectorium of stone ; on it lay an English Translation of the Golden Legend. The table is spread with the simple fare of the sisterhood ; bread from the Convent-lands, fish from the Convent-ponds, fruit from the Convent-orchards. The Abbess enters ; the Priest is already in waiting ; and the Prayer is offered that the King of Eternal Glory may make all those present partakers of the Celestial Table. Each separate dish is marked with the sign of the Cross ; and with the meal begins the lecture. It S. ADELAIDE. 263 lay tell of S. Catherine's yictory over the wisdom id philosophy of this world ; of S. Lawrence's long id patient endurance ; of S. Antony's temptations id triumphs in the desert ; it may tell of English aiiits, — of S. Alban the Protomartyr, of the meek- ess and mercy of S. Edward the Confessor, of the lissionary enterprise and martyrdom of S. Boniface ; r peradventure of some of those Christian heroes ith whom they are themselves bound in closer aion, the fifty thousand Saints of the Benedictine brotherhood. And meanwhile, the table itself reads lesson, not only of frugality and temperance, but f love and courtesy. None must wait on herself ; ach anticipates and provides for the wishes of her Lster ; and all rise to chant the Hymn of Thanks- iving with light hearts, and cheerfully repair to leir daily tasks, and appointed duties. It may be that one, whose education has fitted er for the task, finds, in the forenoon, her way ito the library of the nunnery. For now Father Benedict is abroad ; the parish priest is too thankful or his assistance to deem it an intrusion, or resent t as a liberty ; so he wanders forth to the wilder •arts of the parish, over bleak moors and inhospitable laths, through miry fields and overgrown lanes, eeking out the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the ilind, supplying their wants, — (not from his own tore, for he has nothing, but) — from the charity that le stirs up, and pouring on the bereaved and broken 264 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. heart the balm of ghostly consolation. But, whenP not abroad, he frequently spends hour after hour in P the same library that we have mentioned; nay, it is' ' whispered in the Convent, that he has in hand a little treatise, called Ci)e 33erU ol t\)t €\)n^im ^otole. There may be as many as fifty volumes in this library. There are several Missals and Hours ' ^ of great delicacy and beauty ; the initials blaze with gold and crimson ; wreaths of flowers curl and ^ twine down the page-sides ; and each feast has a ■! legendal illumination of such rare splendour, as ' to make one think that sapphire and ruby pensj^ had been employed, and imparted of their ownii substance to the design. There is the Biblia Pau- perum, with its rich lessons of wisdom ; there is the \^ Breastplate of Durandus of Mende ; one or two of ' t the works of S. Augustine ; the Exposition of S. Gre- i gory on Job ; a copy of the Vulgate ; a translation of the Psalms into English, the work of a for- mer Confessor of the House ; Ci)e ©olTlie (&t^M i of €t)vi^tt^ Con^tante l^lartpr, ^t^nt George ; 1 the Knight, mounted on his steed, seems almost ' kindling with excessive brightness ; his brassarts and cuisses are of pure gold ; his jupon is of the deepest purple ; and the delicate interlacing of his j habergeon in knots of golden chain is marvellous to behold. The monster, dying at his feet, extends his green length across the page ; his forked tongue is of ruby, and his eyes like two little diamonds. S. ADELAIDE. 265 i- • lere, then, was a pleasant retreat during the warm Qornings of summer; the opened lattice looked ver quiet fields ; and the distant sounds of life and epose, of idleness and labour, — the lowing of the ine, the whetting of the scythe, the sheep-hell, the eavy waggon, the laugh, the shutting of the cottage idcket, all blended sweetly together. I will not say hat the sister who listened to them never breathed ne sigh for pleasures that she could not know, never e one regret for scenes which could not return. \nt such thoughts, like fleecy clouds in a July sky, oon passed over ; and in their stead came settled eace, and holy joy, and a hope full of immortality. And the chapel-bell calls to Sexts ; for the sun is t its height : that prayer may hallow the decline, as b hallowed the rise of the day. Nones follow ; and in he brief winter days of England, tapers were needed uring that oflice. Such was not the intention of S. Benedict ; but he igislated for the sunny skies, and longer days of taly. By his rule, not only nones, but vespers also, irere to be concluded by daylight. The evening star is beginning to change its snow ito gold ; the kine go lowing along the lane, for ailking-time is at hand ; the abbey-mill is quiet, and he stream pours by it peace ; the smoke rises thicker rom the village ; the laugh comes less frequent from he fields ; it is the holy hour of Vespers. And while the Magnificat is chanting, let us hear 2 A LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Blessed Bernard of Clairvaux, the Mellifluous Doc- tor, on this Divine Hymn ; the hymn, emphatically, of Virgin Saints. My soul doth magnify the Lord. Doth magnify by word, deed, and desire ; doth magnify by prais- ing, loving, setting forth to others ; doth magnify by , j giving both a form, and a reason, of lauding, of loving, of magnifying. Magnify therefore not thy- self, but God. He who magnified, to his utmost ,i power, himself, dishonoured God, and instead of ! exalting, cast himself down. It is thine to humble thyself ; it is God's to exalt thee. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. First the soul, then the spirit ; for that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual. My spirit hath rejoiced. Beyond all other creatures — yea, and beyond il itself. In whom ? Not in itself, but in God my Saviour, excited by His knowledge and love ; and that not through me, but through the mediation i and salvation of my Redeemer, my Son — mine in a sense that none other knoweth. For He hath regarded the lowliness of His hand- maiden. His handmaiden had not dared to raise her eyes to Him, unless He had first deigned to cast them upon her. And note that she is not content : to say regarded me, nor regarded his handmaiden^ nor regarded my humility ; but she abases herself, and lays the most firm foundation for a superstrue- S. ADELAIDE. 267 ure of such immensity and beauty. His handmaiden. ^y His grace He made me both humble, and His ; made me His, and in me made His Glorious Work. For behold from henceforth : all generations shall all me blessed. Behold, I see what will be my lot, vhat the Fruit of my womb ; what benefits shall be ;iven, not to myself alone, but to all generations, hrough me. Shall call me blessed. And this they i^ould not do unless they were partakers of the ilessedness that is mine. Through me they shall be ilessed ; and yet when each are blessed, all shall call ae, in a more especial manner. Blessed more than 11. All generations, in heaven and in earth ; for tie number of the Angelick generations shall be eplenished by the regeneration of man ; and the enerations of man accursed in Adam shall be, by he Blessed Fruit of my womb, begotten again to ternal blessedness. For He That is mighty hath magnified me, and holy ^ His Name, And this reward of blessedness I scribe not to my own merits, but to Him Who hath lagnified me. It is much to be a Virgin, much to be * , Mother, much more to be both Virgin and Mother : nd Whose mother? — The Only-Begotten Son's, the fiaker and Saviour of all. Marvel not at this : say ot. How can these things be ? He That is mighty — ea. Almighty — hath magnified me. Think upon His ^ower; whatsoever He willeth, that He can do. ^ey are great things which ye see in me, and great 268 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. is His Power to do them. And why did He bring these wonders to pass ? — Because holy is His Name, He wrought for His Name's sake, not for my desert. He desired to declare in me His Name, which is | great, wonderful, and holy. And His mercy is on them that fear Him : throughout | all generations. We must begin with fear, that we | may end in love. Let not them, therefore, despair that fear for their sins, because mercy is on them that [ fear. Mercy remits sin ; remission of sin nourishes love ; they who love Him know His Name ; love is knowledge itself ; and by how much the less perfectly we know Him, by so much the less ardently we love Him. He hath shewed strength with His arm. By nature j we were the sons of wrath, but by the redemption of \ Jesus Christ we have become the sons of mercy, because He hath bound the strong man, and spoiled his goods. Otherwise, unless the Son had set us free, and reconciled us by His Death to God, not mercy to save, but justice to punish, would have been upon those that fear Him. He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart. From the beginning of time. Angels and men, yielding to pride, have been so dispersed. Satan and his host were scattered because they would not abide in the unity of truth. The proud men that built the Tower of Babel were scattered by the confusion of tongues. In \ the imagination of their heart. For if their crime S. ADELAIDE. 269 as secret, their punishment shall be open. There > a pride which is manifest to all, as that taken in eauty or fair vests ; there is a pride which appears 1 itself more noble, and yet is more base ; such is tiat taken in learning, or power, or the subtlety of itellect. There is a third kind, and it is the worst f all ; the glorying in virtues, and miracles, and elestial mysteries. He hath put down the mighty from their seat : nd hath exalted the humble and meek. In the first lace, the rulers of the darkness of this world, rho were mighty in bringing evil to pass. And gain, in another sense, by the humiliation and enitence of mighty kings : as when the King of Nineveh came down from his throne, and humbled imself in sackcloth and ashes. And to this ay He continueth to put down the proud : some 0 eternal punishment, some to the kingdom of lamility. He hath filled the hungry with good things, ^irst he humbles, then he feeds. Hungry, and yet illed : as the Angels, who always behold the Face of he Father, and have hunger in satiety, and satiety n hunger ; but such satiety as is without disgust, tnd such hunger as is without pain. And even lere in their journey, though not as in their Country, he servants of God hunger and thirst after righteous- less. And the rich He hath sent empty away. Esau NSiS rich, therefore he cared not for Jacob's gifts. * I have enough, my brother : keep that thou hast to 2 A 2 270 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. thyself." Jethro was rich: therefore he would not i) go to possess the good things which the Lord had $ promised to Israel. Never, therefore, appear to thy- ^ self rich and increased with goods, and to have need Ij of nothing, lest thou be sent empty away. Say I always to thy Lord God, "As for me, I am helpless ! and poor." He remembering His Mercy hath holpen His servant Israel, This is the only cause of God's remem- brance, that He might shew forth His Mercy. God seemed to have forgotten to be gracious, because He delayed to send His Son until the latter days of the world. But He hath remembered that which He had \ never forgotten, that we may always bear His Mercy i in mind, and be setting it forth to all eternity, i Israel, As long as he was called Jacob, he was in hard labour. He served faithfully in that which was another man's ; but when he was returning with riches, to see his father's face, then he obtained another name, which was Israel. As He promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever. This is the last verse of this decalogue ; the last curtain of the ten which couple this tabernacle. In it the verity of God, and the truth of both Testaments, and the unity of the i Faithful, is set forth. God spake once. Who created 1 all things ; but that which was decreed by Him from | all eternity, once for all, was set forth at sundry times, and in divers manners, to us. Yet He spake S. ADELAIDE. 2/1 pbscurely, so that but few perceived, tintil in these ast days He spake to us by His Son. And even now ve see through a glass darkly. But at length He ^hall be fully known by the Elect among the splen- ! lours of His Saints. In the beginning, then. He ipake that unto our fathers, which in the end of the vorld He began to declare: that one and the same itone might bind together His former and latter children in the unity of one Faith and Love, and :hat they might be One Dove, and One Beautiful, :he Church which believed in a coming, and received I manifested Saviour.* The Collation follows ; and gathering round the refectory fire, the sisters listen to the life or writings 3f some of God's Saints, ere they partake in the simple meal, which closes the worldly business of I .he day. It is quite dark. Once more the sisterhood, ;vinding among the graves of the departed, where low the phanal, or dead-light, is burning, enter the chapel for Compline. Its brief Psalms are soon 5ung. The accustomed sprinkling with Holy Water follows ; and they leave the House of God for the lormitory. Those who were still unwearied in the service of God might remain yet a little while in His House, until the warden's bell should warn them to follow their companions. The nightly examination )f conscience, the nightly prayer, the sign of the * Abridged from S. Bernard's Sermon on the Magnificat. Tom. v, (09. (Ed. Horst.) 272 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Cross, concluded the Monastick Day. Then all was silence. Any sound was visited by the punishment of repairing to the Cross that stood among the graves ; and by passing there, in silence and solitude, > i an hour of the cold night. And this is the life which we think well abrogated, if This was Monastick luxury : this Benedictine indo- * lence ! God pardon those that have spoken so much, and so ignorantly, concerning it ! Come we now to the life of that Blessed Saint , whom we may seem to have forgotten. If we are of i necessity compelled to be briefer in the narration of her ai virtues, by how much we have been longer in that of a the system under which they brought forth fruit, she, we are sure, would think our length in the one, and our breyity in the other, well bestowed. S. Adelaide was of noble extraction. Her father, Count Gemengor (or Megengor), was a man of wealth and influence : her mother, Gerberga, the sister of Duke Godfrey, whose descendant, Henry, became Emperor of the West. They were blessed with a son and four daughters. Of the latter, two were wedded into noble families ; two took upon themselves the easier yoke of Christ. iVdelaide at an early age embraced, in the city of Cologne, the religious life. The sisterhood followed the rule of S. Jerome, and she ^ was early distin- guished among them for wisdom and holiness. It happened that the Emperor, having declared S. ADELAIDE. 273 ir against the Bohemians, went forth to conquer em with a great army. The princes and chiefs of 3 court vied with each other in the brilhancy of eir equipments, and the valour of their achieve- ants. None gave himself more thoroughly up to e prosecution of the war than Godfrey, the brother Adelaide. But in him was shewn the contrast tween earthly and spiritual warfare. For whereas, the latter. He that now goeth forth weeping shall mhtless come again with joy ; this young warrior 3nt forth high in anticipation of glory, and returned be laid in the sepulchre of his ancestors. His irents having lost the stay and joy of their declining iars, took the affliction as a warning, that the shion of this world passeth away. All that had ^en their son's they devoted to God; and thence- rth, giving themselves up to a stricter life, fulfilled le Apostle's saying— Let them that have wives be J though they had them not. They raised from its lins a glorious church at Wilhch (or Belhch) ; and idowing it with broad lands and rich pastures, they )unded there a rehgious sisterhood. And whom lould they select as its first abbess but their own aughter? She that had given such rare proofs of le virtue of obedience would doubtless be endued ith the authority necessary to command. To secure more perfect power of self-control to tieir new foundation, they besought the Emperor )tho to take it under his own Royal Protection. 274 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Moved by their piety, he acceded to their request and not only so, but endowed it with the same privileges that the monasteries of Gandersheim! . and Quedlenburg already enjoyed. He exempted it from all civil duties ; he freed it from all secular in- terference ; and ordained that the right of election to the Abbess-ship should rest for ever with the' ^ sisterhood alone. These grants were confirmed b} Bulls from Rome; and thus the New House flourished greatly. And no long time after, the Laely Gerberga, living in the unshaken profession of the Catholick Faith, and the practice of all good works, |k was called by the Lord to the reward which He hath promised to them that love Him. On the decease of her mother, whom she hetAp tenderly loved, Adelaide began to long for stricter ti discipline, and more uninterrupted communion with"' God. For this purpose, she turned her thoughts to the adoption of the Benedictine Rule. But, vlvl-q willing to incur the condemnation of the foolish 11^ workman, that began to build, and was not able ton finish, she resolved to attempt, for one year, a course of life similar to that which she hoped to embrace ; the sisterhood knew not of the change, save one'^ only, whom she made the companion of her inmost thoughts. At the end of the set period, summoning., the Abbess of a neighbouring House, she prayed to • be instructed in the Rule of S. Benedict ; beseech- ing, at the same time, those who were under her to S. ADELAIDE. 275 ibrace it. Many followed her example; some urned to the world. For the latter she grieved ig and deeply ; the former she exhorted to stand ;t in their profession, remembering Whose servants ey'were, and to how illustrious a dignity they were mmoned. Two years after her adoption of a stricter dis- )line. Count Megengor departed this life; and ubtless was crowned by Him Whose Cross he had Hantly carried. On the night of his departure, lelaide, between sleeping and waking, was startled r the appearance of a spirit at the side of her luch. In a low and musical tone it seemed to say. The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to 3art ; and merciful men are taken away, none con- dering that the righteous is taken away from the il to come." On the morrow she related to her sters the vision ; and ere she had made an end, a essenger arrived, who brought the news of her Teavement. She raised a fair high tomb for her irents ; and they rested well in the great church of ilUch. Having now Him alone Who is the Father of the therless to look to, Adelaide devoted herself with newed dihgence to the government of his house, nd the annahst (Berta, the sister of S. Wulfhelm,) ^ells with dehght on her love and tender-heartedness I her sisters : how, after Nocturns, in the long winter ghts, she would with her own hands chafe their 276 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. feet : how, not content with obeying the rule by com- j mitting the sick to the care of grave and prudent sisters, she visited them and tended them herself: how the tears which she shed over them could not have been more abundant, had they been her earthly, instead of being her spiritual children. A famine that visited Germany gave her ample opportunity to prove her love to the poor. They heard that there was corn in Willich : they came, men, women, and children, to beg their share ; the healthy and the infirm, the yet uninjured, and the almost perishing, were alike petitioners at the gates. She not only fed them, but took care that her very charity should do them no harm. To the healthy she dispensed," says Berta, bread and lard ; to the weak, broth of flesh and beans ; to those in the last ' stage of famine, bread sopped in water, or porridge^ or gruel. And she remained by them while they took their respective portions ; that excessive hunger might not tempt them ravenously to devour what was set before them, and to turn the support of life into an occasion of death." S. Heribert was now Archbishop of Cologne. His sister Bertrada slept in the Lord ; and the Convent 1 of S. Mary, at Cologne, was thus deprived of itSi head. Well knowing the graces which so abun- dantly shone forth in S. Adelaide, he requested her to take upon herself the government of that house ; but she, from modesty, strenuously refused to preside S. ADELAIDE. 277 ver so important a charge. The request and the efusal coming to the ears of the Emperor, then at Lix-la-Chapelle, he sent for the Abbess, and by a tretch of the Regale, for which none will blame him, ompelled her to comply with the Bishop's demand. )0 a holy friendship grew up between the two ; with ne heart they concerted measures for the good of he Church Militant, and without doubt they now oin together in the song of the Church Trium- >hant. Happy Cologne ! at once to possess a ainted Emperor, Bishop, and Abbess ! But though called far away from her former iharge, and raised to the direction of a richer and nore illustrious foundation, S. Adelaide could not for- get those at Willich whom she had nourished for the jOrd with the milk of salutary doctrine. She was L nursing mother to both Convents ; and present in he body at one, she was not absent in the spirit rom the other. And at the same time she was Uustrious for miracles, though it seems to have )leased God that more gifts of healing should be )erformed by her remains than when she was alive n the flesh. When it was her Master's will to remove her from ihe cares and temptations of this naughty world, her itrength, without any perceptible disease, began to ■ail. Diminishing vigour of body only caused increas- ng earnestness of soul, according to that saying. My jtrength is made perfect in weakness. On S. Blaise's 2 B 278 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Day (the 3rd of February), she was seized, after supper, with a violent pain in the throat, and so much did she suffer that, Comphne ended, she mentioned her illness to one of the sisters, but unwiUing to transgress the rule of silence, she did it by signs. The nun either not comprehending the whole of the malady, or worn out with the fatigues of the \i day, lay down to rest. S. Adelaide followed her example, but could not sleep. She felt that her ; time was come, and the fear of death, an unusual i thing at the departure of the Saints of the Most High, fell upon her. Anticipating the call to Noc- turns, she arose, and, going to the church, was I earnest in prayer. As soon as it was light, she received, at her earnest request, the Body and Blood of our Lord, and then consulted S. Heribert as to ' the state of her own soul, and on the good govern- ment of those over whom she had presided. The Archbishop finding that he must be separated from . one whom he had loved more dearly than a sister, , could not restrain his grief. He strengthened her with ghostly consolation, and at his hands she received the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. Send- ing a messenger to her daughters at Willich, she informed them that she was indisposed (for, to spare them unnecessary hours of grief, she called not her illness by a graver name), and bade them come to her as soon as they could. They delayed their visit for a day, and on their arrival at Cologne, found that S. ADELAIDE 279 leir Mother had already entered into Paradise. Enable to hear her last words, they begged hard for er precious remains. The Archbishop resisted : ley fell at his feet ; he began to waver : they im- loi'ed and conjured ; and at length he yielded. But God be my witness/^ he said, that were the ody of S. Agatha, whose feast we this day celebrate, lid before me, I would not prefer it to these remains ; )r in the sight of the Lord the soul that even now 'uanted them was of great price." Thus, having obtained their petition, they bore le holy corpse to the river. Archbishop and clergy, len and women, followed. The nuns embarked ith their treasure ; and as they sped up the river^ le rowers would have it that they felt a supernatural ssistance in battling with the stream. A niece of le deceased Abbess, of upright life," writes the an, " and tall in stature, and of comely counte- ance," adds the woman, succeeded her in the govern- lent of the House, and in the love of its inmates. VIRGIN AND MARTYR. A.D. 10/0. TT is a flat and uninteresting scene, that which meets the eye of the traveller as he journeys through the plains of West Flanders. Were it not that the country is rich in historical associations, that Courtray, and Bruges, and Ypres recall the great struggle between the feudal aristocracy and the wealth of a merchant bourgeoisie^ and that the cities themselves, with their wonderful churches and stately town-halls, with the carved projections of their houses, and quaint figures that look down upon the streets, yield many a pleasant stroll to the antiquary, and many a curious sketch to the painter, Flanders would be less known to England than many a land at the remote ends of the earth. But it is not of any of those ancient cities that we S. GODELEVA, 281 ow tell, nor are our pages to record political conten- ions and revolutionary strife : it is to the town of Thistel, lyii^g between Bruges and Nieuport, and iresenting, at the distance of not more than fifty ail'es from Dover, a wonderful — oh 1 how wonderful ! —contrast to our own Kent, that we must now turn ur steps. If you journeyed through that place on he sixth of July, you would find the churches )ealing out their summons to Mass or Sermon ; you vonld see crowds of worshippers thronging into hem; you would find a concourse of Pilgrims to he Holy Well ; and you would be told that it was he feast of S. Godlief, Virgin and Martyr. Chroni- ilers have softened the Belgian name into Godeleva, )r Godoleva. They might more properly have trans- ated it into TheopMla — that is. Beloved of God. ind so in truth she was ; so dearly beloved of Him, :hat, after a brief stay in this world. He took her into His own dwelling, making her His indeed who bad of old been His in heart. Godeleva was born at Londefort, of a good family. Her father was named Infrid; her mother, Ogeva. Her childhood was noted for nothing so much as for her charity to the poor. It does not appear that she looked forward to a Virgin life ; and as she was dis- tinguished for beauty, and not destitute of wealth, she was soon surrounded by suitors, both of her own land and from distant provinces. Of these, he who found most favour in the eyes of the maiden was 2 B 2 282 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Bertulph, an esquire of good family, and a native of Ghistel. The parents of Godeleva had nothing to object to her suitor ; and he returned to his own home, whither they were to follow him, and where the marriage was to he celebrated. But the mother of this evil man, when she heard of his choice, was filled with indignation. "Were ui the maidens of Flanders and Brabant," she said, i! " despicable in your eyes ? Had Hainault no love- liness, and Antwerp no charms, that you must needs bring home a stranger to be your bride ? Shall this foreign raven have her place at your hearth in- stead of the dove that I had hoped to welcome thither ?" And Drogo, the biographer, is careful to inform us, that though the dark hair and eyes of Godeleva excited the dislike and contempt of the matron, she was worthy as much for the loveliness of i; her form as for the beauty of her mind to be the bride of the lordliest earl in France. But these words sank deeply into the heart of the ,k unstable Bertulph : and when his bride was brought : to Ghistel, though he did not refuse to go through the marriage ceremony, he absented himself from the marriage feast. To her guests his mother behaved with studious politeness ; excused and lamented the absence of her son, suffering, she said, from sick- ness ; the love of his bride would be a comfort to i - his mind, and would, no doubt, be blessed to his restoration to health. 1 S. GO DE LEVA. 283 So the parents of Godeleva were deceived, and rent their way, leaving their hapless lamh in the lidst of wolves. Bertulph also departed to another state ; but before he went he took counsel of his lother, and devised how he might afflict her whom e was bound to cherish. He called to him a trusty 3rvant— if indeed one wicked man can in any way be died trusty in respect of another, — and gave his idy into his charge. She was to be kept in close 3nfinement ; her food was to be bread and water ; le quantity small, the time seldom. Thus Godeleva was taught the ways of Christ in mch need of body and affliction of soul ; and of the nail portion that constituted her daily sustenance tie found means to bestow half on the poor. At iugth, through the negligence of her keeper, a way as opened for her escape ; and forthwith she took 3fuge with her parents. Her father, willing, if ossible, even yet to accommodate the matter, aited on Baldwin, Count of Flanders, who in- 3rested another Baldwin, Bishop of Tournay, in le business, and commended the affair to his hands. How beautiful a picture of primitive simplicity ! — tie father of a deserted wife appealing to the lord, nd to the prelate, that were appointed over his 3n-in-law, and they lending a ready ear to his Dlicitation ! By their intervention, a pretended reconciliation 3ok place ; but no sign of true love could Godeleva 284 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. obtain from her husband, and she was soon as much deserted, though not so ill-treated, as she had been before. How long she thus lived is uncertain ; but it appears probable that in this dreary life she passed eight or nine years. At length, one night, Bertulph made his appear- ance, and fondly embracing his wife, expressed deep sorrow for his past conduct. They sat together on one of the rude benches that were the sufficient fur- niture of those old castles ; and with one hand clasped in that of her husband, Godeleva listened to his words of love — words well befitting the twilight hour of that lovely summer night. For there was peace in every whisper of the wind among the trees that skirted the castle-yard ; there was peace in the red light that yet lingered in the western sky ; there was peace in the last sounds of country labour, then ceasing for the repose of sleep. And she listened to Bertulph, and believed his words ; and her heart beat fondly, and her eyes smiled sweetly for him, and she thought that she had underrated the hap- piness that this world could offer, and she looked forward to a sun-lit future. Not so, servant of God : earthly prosperity might detract from your heavenly felicity ; your anticipations are mistaken in them- selves, but they shall be more than gloriously fulfilled. "And so, my Godeleva," continued Bertulph, " that these evil differences arise no more between I S. GODELEVA. 3, I have met with a woman who affirms herself l ie, by arts unknown to the physicians, to remedy em for the past, and to prevent them for the future ; .d if you will see her, and consult with her, it will ; ^ happy thing for both of us, and I shall be ermore bounden to you." ^af," answered Godeleva, ''l ean do so without fending God, for I misdoubt whence comes the cill of such persons, most glad shall I be to do lything that may pleasure you, my lord and asband, and specially in a matter of this purport." " Then," answered Bertulph," for this one night will leave you ; but 1 have entrusted this matter to ly servants, Lambert andHacca, and you may trust 3 their directions in it as you would to mine. And ow, good night ; and may this happy evening be the arnest of much and increasing happiness." So saying, he mounted his horse, and rode to Bruges; and Godeleva, after returning thanks to >OD for this happy change in her affairs, retired to ler lonely couch. A little after midnight, about the ime of the second cock-crow, when all things were ,s still and as dark as they could be at that season of he year— for it was the 6th of July, the Octave of he Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, — Hacca and Lam- )ert aroused their mistress from sleep. Hardly giving her time to throw around her a hasty cover- ng, they informed her that the woman whom her ord had mentioned was at hand ; was, even now, in 286 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the court-yard ; was anxious at once, at this very • juncture of the stars and hour of the night, to complete her errand. I Godeleva followed — not without committing her- 1 self into the hands of Him That slumbereth not, nor ; sleepeth. And as they entered the court, the servants placed themselves one on each side, and distracting her attention by some frivolous remark, seized that moment to fling a noose around her neck. It needed i no great effort on the part of the murderers to finish their cruel task ; and to make sure that their com- mission was complete, they plunged S. G odeleva in a tank hard by, fearing that there might still be a lingering spark of life. Then they laid her in her bed ; and for some time it was believed that she had departed by a natural death. Bertulph married again. A blind daughter received her sight at the tomb of S. Godeleva, now becoming illustrious for its miracles. At first, her father would not believe this wonder ; when he was certified of it, the hardened sinner was touched with repent- ance. He retired to the monastery of S. Winnoe, and there, in deep and long-continued penitence, ended his days. The tank where S. Godeleva was drowned is now the well which is the object of pilgrimage. And a convent was founded in honour of the Saint, which, at the time of the rebellion and change of religion in the Low Countries, was removed to Bruges. VIRGIN. ABOUT A.D. 1160. rHERE are probably few members of our Church who have been in the habit of using, or who ave felt the beauty of, the Hymn called Benedicite, Vom one year's end to another it is not heard in ur churches ; — although during the season of Lent, rhen the Te Deum ought not to be chanted, this lymn should daily take its place. And indeed, by lany, it seems to be considered a somewhat tedious nd meaningless Psalm of praise ; an invocation of tiings which cannot unite with us ; with irrational nd insensible existences. It was on a December morning, and on the Western hores of Africa, that I first learnt the beauty of this )ivine Song. That day we had far to travel, and a teep mountain range to cross ; so that the hour of Latins was fixed early ; and the time being Advent, 288 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Holy Church invited her children to the use of tli([ Benedicite. Far, far below our rude window, (foir we had already begun to mount the ridge) the graV„ sea caught here and there a faint glow of light ; anci! its melancholy waste was cheered by one passing sail. O ye seas and floods," — said the little ban( of pilgrims, "bless ye the Lord : praise Him, anc magnify Him for ever !" The tall palms whispered ^ one to the other above our abode, — the ^reen sugar- ? canes rustled pleasantly in the dell, the fresh leaves of the banana peeped out, like rolls of emerald; " the green things upon the earth" were called to ] join in our matin praise. High over us hung the eternal mountains, that we that day had to climb ; and sloping upwards to their feet, the gentle hills J that lay around them ; '^mountains and hills" were[ invoked in the Song of the Three Children. Even ^ now, night was departing, and day broke on the[ distant peaks ; " O ye nights and days," said we, r " bless ye the Lord : praise Him and magnify Him for ever !" ^ It was, perhaps, from something of a similar' feeling, and not merely from the love of solitude, * that hermits forsook the haunts of their fellow men, and hid themselves in dens of the earth. Among those wild scenes, they were sure of finding some- what to share their devotion; and the sight and the sound of sin was not at hand to distract or t6 deaden it. In such spots, the Saint of whom we S. ROSALY. 289 )W write took up ker abode, and went to her St. Little, very little, is known of the history of this lint ; but one of the most celebrated of Mediaeval irgins is not to be passed over in silence. She was )rn in Sicily, in the earlier part of the twelfth ntury, Palermo is believed to have been her itive place ; and she herself one of the maids of mour to Queen Margaret, the wife of William, ing of Sicily. And so far as respected the gnity of her family, she was well worthy of lat advancement ; for she traced her pedigree to harlemagne. Weary, however, of worldly honours, and desirous I stand always in the Presence of a greater King lan the Sicilian monarch, she entered the monastick !e ; and was received into the order of S. Basil, his Order, except in that particular branch of it tiled the Carmelites, never (as may be seen from le Monastick Table we have already given) flourished uch in the West. But Sicily had always a close mnection with the East ; many of its churches lew the architecture which has received its name om Byzantium ; — and Greek and Latin, were, in le twelfth century, (^ach in a vernacular and cor- ipt form,) nearly equally spoken. Basilian Monks e to be found there to this very day. But Bosaly, after a short sojourn in one of the invents of their order, sighed for uninterrupted 2 c 290 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. solitude, — a desire which it would be as sinful, as impossible, to draw into a precedent ; but doubtless, in her particular case, not allowed but for good. She accordingly retired to a hill now known by the name of Monte della Quisquina; and there discovered a natural grotto exactly suited to her necessities. It was long, narrow, and double throughout its whole length ; a tongue of rock dividing it from East to West. And on a large rock at the left hand of the entrance, she carved these words : Ego Rosalia SiNIBALDI QuiSaUINE ET RoSARUM DOMINI FILIA AMORE DnI MEI JeSU ChRISTI INI HOC ANTRO HABiTARi decrevi. " I, Rosaly, daughter to Sinibald, lord of Quisquina and Rose, have, for the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, determined to dwell in this cave." — The inscription remains to this day, and is, by the best antiquaries, pronounced genuine; the form of the letters being that used in Sicily coevally with the Saint ; and the two mistakes, ini for in, and habitari for habitare, giving great probability to the authenticity of the writing. From hence she removed to another grotto on Monte Peregrino, at this day a celebrated church ; i and there, about the year 1 1 70, she ended her days in peace. An obscure tradition of these events existed in Sicily from the times of the Saint ; but it was not till the year 1624 that the cave on Monte Peregrino was rediscovered. The remains found in it were S. ROSALY. 291 i- jubmitted to a mixed assembly of divines and physicians ; and decided to be those of the Saint. From that time her fame has spread far and wide ; md Palermo and all Sicily more especially delight to honour her. Thus much we have related of this celebrated V^irgin ; but, since no practical advantage can accrue from the contemplation of her life to us individually, further than the lesson that is to be learnt from the A.cts of all Saints, self-denial and the endurance of hardness, here we shall stop. The very learned dissertation on the Acts of this Virgin Hermit, written by Stilting the BoUandist, extends to one hundred and forty folio pages, closely printed, and containing double columns. Clara. YIRGIN, AND FOUNDRESS OF THE CLARISSINES. A,D. L253. nPHE thirteenth century of the Church's existence is that Y^iich, to us^ is perhaps harder to un- derstand than any other. In it the grand question between Ecclesiastical and Civil power was debated on the most magnificent scale the world ever beheld; Erastianism could not desire more able champions than Philip Augustus of France^ and Otho of Ger- many ; the Church never knew a more active and vigorous Pontiff than Innocent III. Modern historians have, with one voice, con- demned the Bishop of Rome, as one who in all things sought his own interest under the pretence of religion ; who sought to set himself up above earthly monarch s, and who took a pride in insulting the majesty of the sceptre ; who for the sake of his personal greatness, threw whole kingdoms into a \ S. CLARA. 293 I state of the deepest misery, and deprived the Uving )f the power of worshipping God, and the dying of ^he consolations of the Church. Phihp Augustus, 3n the other hand, is held up as the model of a ^reat and resolute king ; is praised for wisdom be- jrond his age, and pointed out as one of the few who iared to cast off the fetters of mediaeval superstition. So differently do the Church and the world judge ; md God forbid that the time should ever come ivhen it shall cease to be so ! At the same time, we cannot deny that Innocent [II., however bold and energetick in the Church's jause, was led, by the feudal system of the day, to nake claims to which he had no right. ^^My [kingdom is not of this world,'' said our Lord : innocent was for making it like a worldly sovereignty ; le would have earthly kingdoms held in fief of S. Peter, and seemed to consider himself the feudal lead of all Christendom. Equally must we con- ess, that Otho and Philip Augustus, in asserting :hat they held their authority from God alone, iccidentally, and (so to speak) by chance, stumbled m the truth. Modern historians have looked merely it these two facts, and thence concluded that the Pontiff was wrong, and that the Sovereigns were ight ; but they have not seen, or would not own, ;hat the one was contending for a great and a loly principle, — though sometimes misunderstood, ind sometimes misapplied; while the others were 2 c2 294 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. attacking the same great truth, although they sometimes happened to maintain verities of minor importance. The danger which evidently, in this age, beset the ' Church, was that of secularity. While the suc- cessor of S. Peter held, to use the modern phrase, the balance of power in Europe ; while Prelates and Ecclesiasticks were from their superior learning almost alone employed as ambassadors and coun- sellors ; while Bishops were, by the feudal tenure under which they held their barony, compelled to supply their sovereign with a given number of troops when demanded ; while iVbbeys were selected as the j securest places for the negotiation and adjustment of I treaties ; while the devotion of the faithful was f pouring into the treasuries of the Church riches of untold amount ; while the Crusades, as well against the Infidels as against the Albigenses, were blending , earthly chivalry with Christian self-denial, it could ^ not be but that a spirit of worldliness should creep into the Church. It was to be expected that gold and jewels, that pomp and pageantry, that high station and exalted employments, valuable only so j far as they proved that the earth was the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, and as such the inheritance of His Spotless Bride, should, by degrees, be sought for ( themselves, and prized for their own sakes. A most fatal, and a most insidious disease ! a disease against which, as it seemed, no remedy then in the power of j S. CLARA. 295 he Church was sufficient to cure, as nothing had leen able to prevent it. It is true that the end and aim of the Monastick ife was to encourage Christian virtues the most opposed to the danger; that humiUty, self-denial, obedience, poverty, there lived and there flourished, [t is also true that the Cistercian order had been m illustrious pattern of all these graces, when the ove of other religious bodies had waxed cold. But, in the thirteenth century, we cannot deny that great corruptions had crept in among the religious, as well IS among the secular clergy. Worldly grandeur had nfected, in some degree, both one and the other. The dispute, for instance, on the subject of pre- eminence, between the Houses of Monte Cassino, the head of the Benedictine Order, and Cluny, the nother of the Cluniac offshoot of that brotherhood, must have been a most unseemly spectacle ; nor less so its termination, that the heads of these two monasteries should respectively be termed Abbat of Abbats, and First of Abbats, Again ; the antagonist principle to the secularising influences exerted on the Church, however deeply rooted in the religious bodies, was, where strongest, the most concealed ; it was confined to the cell and the cloister of necessity ; it could not come forth and walk abroad with men. Something seemed necessary which, without lowering the high standard of Monasticism, should bring it into contact with-every day life ; so that man's 296 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. avarice might be exposed by the spectacle of volun- tary poverty, his self-will by voluntary obedience, his love of dignity by voluntary self-abasement. It pleased God that two eminent reformers should arise, nearly at the same time, in two different parts of Europe, who by their exertions introduced a new order of men, and a new state of things, into the Church. These were S. Dominic and S. Francis. S. Dominic was born in a.d. 1170, at Calaruega, in Castille ; he received a good education at Palencia, and was taken into the employment of the Bishop of Osma. At this time, the south-eastern parts of France were much infested with heresy ; it seems to have been a kind of offshoot from the old Manichsean doctrine, which believed in two First Principles, a Good and an Evil. Its propagators also inveighed against marriage as evil in itself ; and held many other dangerous tenets. Among these men Dominic and his Bishop laboured with great success. S. Francis was born at Assisi in the year 1182 ; he was the son of a merchant, but more given to the pursuit of pleasure than to that of gain. But from his youth up he had a great tenderness for the poor; and partly by visions, partly by more ordinary means, was led to long earnestly for Christian per- fection. As he was one day praying in the old church of S. Damian, near Assisi, a building ruin- ous from age, he heard a voice three times, which S. CLARit. 297 aid, Rise, and repair My dwelling-place, which is eady to fall." He left the church, went to Foligni, neighouring town, sold all that he had, and took tp his abode at S. Damian, in company with a good iriest named Peter, intending to work at its restora- ion. His father treated him harshly, the towns- olk of Assisi jeered and reviled him. Francis bore 11 patiently ; and at length, in the presence of his iather, renounced all worldly riches, and embraced a tate of voluntary poverty before Guy, Bishop of ^ssisi. After this, having no money to contribute 0 the reparation of his church, he employed himself n asking alms for it from those that had, and giving lis own bodily labour in carrying stones. He inished his task, and then completed the restoration f two neighbouring churches, still understanding iterally that which he had heard in the church of i. Damian. S. Francis is one of those whom, in the details of lis life, it would be both unlawful and impossible for IS to make our pattern. His two distinguishing haracteristicks were, ardent love to God^ and ixtreme simplicity. In all worldly points of view^ 5. Dominic was the superior of S. Francis. The me was learned, the other ignorant ; the one a lignitary of the Church, the other a layman ; the me already the means of converting hereticks,, the )ther had never opened his mouth to teach ; and 298 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Dominic was the superior of S. Francis in age and rank. Ii Yet the rule of the latter was formed first, and, in 1 the sequel, became the more illustrious. | Once, as Francis was attending Mass, the Gospel [ for the day contained the text, Provide neither | gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey ; neither two coats, neither shoes, i nor yet staves." This," said he, in a transport of | joy, " this is the desire of my soul ; this is the life I will embrace." Taking the words literally, he attired himself as the Seventy, and thenceforward \ began to preach, in the hope of obtaining some 1 followers who would embrace his rule. From a pro- | ceeding like this, we can draw no inference : it i would be as absurd to conclude that, because | S. Francis thus acted, we are in all cases to interpret Scripture literally, and that laymen may preach, as to argue, that because the Jews were commanded to « exterminate the Canaanites from Palestine, Christian nations may extend their kingdoms in a similar way. Bernard of Assisi was the first follower of Francis ; \ and it was necessary to have some fixed rule for the infant Society. The master and the disciple went into the church of S. Nicolas, and S. Francis opened the Bible at a venture three times, designing i to be guided by the text which he should first see. This method of proceeding in us would be presump- tion : it has been strictly forbidden by the Church, ( S. CLARA. 299 nd, therefore, here also we can draw no inference rom S. Francis' conduct. The first text was : " If thou wilt be perfect, go ell that thou hast and give to the poor." (S. Matt. ix; 21.) The second: "Take nothing for your journey." S. Luke ix. 3.) And the third : " If any one will come after Me, et him deny himself, and take up his Cross, and bllow Me." (S. Matt. xvi. 14.) " This," said Francis, " shall be my rule. Let us io what we have heard." When he had seven dis- ciples, he set before them the end and aim of his nstitution ; and they went forth preaching, simply md effectually, the need of repentance. Some time after, their founder wrote a rule for his followers, and went to Rome in order to obtain the Pope's approba- tion. Innocent III. had his mind taken up with more important matters, or, at least, what he con- sidered to be so, and would not listen to Francis ; and even when he did, he hesitated about approving the rule, saying that it was above human strength. But a Cardinal who was there warned Innocent to take heed lest, in rejecting this rule, he should also reject the rule of the Gospel : and the Pope yielded. The confirmation was given in the year 1210. The disciples of S. Francis were called Friars Minorites, It was five years afterwards that S. Dominic, coming with his Bishop to the great Council of the 300 LIVES OF VIROIN SAINTS. Lateran, obtained the Pope's confirmation of his foundation of a brotherhood, who were to go about preaching the Gospel, and whom he principally- intended to oppose here ticks. They were called Friars Preachers, Both these orders resembled each other in many things ; and principally in this, that they were to possess no property, but to live on alms, for which they were to beg. At one time the Franciscans alone numbered seven thousand monasteries, and nine hundred nunneries ; one hundred and fifteen thousand brothers, and more than twenty thousand sisters. I am not writing the life of S. Francis, or S. Do- minic ; I therefore pass by the astonishing miracles which they were privileged to work. Each of these orders was governed by a general. He was kept in check by the assembled chapter of the whole order, w^hich was held from time to time, when another general might be elected. And thus the brother- hoods went on increasing, long after their founders had gone to their reward. The Franciscans were in particular useful to the Church by their Third Order, as it was called. It contained those who, without retiring from the world, or even entirely renouncing marriage, were willing to live more soberly, righteously, and godly than others, and to be reminded of their determination by a peculiar vest. But as these orders spread, so did abuses creep in. S. CLARA. 301 iWhat was called the Interpretation of tlie Will of I S. Francis opened a great door for corruption. Up to that time, the Friars Minorites had heen forbidden to receive money; but in 1230, Pope Gregory IX. allowed them, under certain restrictions, to do so, and lowered their rule in other respects. This and like constitutions on the part of Rome were the fruitful source of dissensions among the Franciscans, and the cause of a great schism in their body. Some said that the Pope had no right to alter the institutions of their founder ; others maintained that he had ; and these last finally triumphed. Again : the interference of the Mendicant Orders with the parish clergy produced great evils. They too often drew away people from their parish churches, taught them to despise their own curate, and to receive Communion from themselves. Their profession of poverty was too often forgotten ; and disputes arose between the Minorites and the Preachers as to pre-eminence. In process of time, also, the Dominican order became hateful to many on another account. The popes were in the habit of employing these Friars, in countries where heresy was suspected, as inquisitors into its rise and pro- gress. By degrees, the office of the Inquisition degenerated very much ; and instead of being a wholesome check on offenders, it was made the instrument of cruelty and violence. 2 D 302 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. These were some of the causes which made the Mendicant Orders the especial subject of abuse to the turbulent reformers of the sixteenth century. But they rendered immense service to the Church, both in Christian and in foreign lands ; they were a means of penetrating to places where the Parochial system could not reach ; they were engines of immense power in that, when a province was exposed to heresy, a multitude of defenders of the Faith could be poured into every village and hamlet which it contained. The Friars, poor men themselves, under- stood and felt for the poor ; they came and went without ceremony ; they found entrance where those of higher rank might have been refused ; they were a standing army, ready at a moment's notice to overrun the kingdoms of Satan. It was necessary to say thus much before entering on the life I am about to relate, that of the most celebrated Virgin Saint of those under the Rule of S. Francis Militant ; I mean S. Clara. S. Clara was a fellow-citizen of S. Francis. Their births were in the same town, they both ran the same race, and now they both reign together in Heaven. Her father, Favorino Sciifo, was a knight of good family, and sufficient fortune. Her mother, Hortulana, though living in the world, had her treasure in Heaven, and out of her abundant love to our Blessed Saviour, visited the holy spots where He had lived and suffered. When she was praying in the church S. CLARA. 303 for safe deliverance in the hour of her peril (for she was about to become a mother), she heard a voice, or an effect was produced on her mind as if she had heard it, telling her that the infant whom she was about to bring into the world would be the means of giving light to the Church. In remembrance of I this declaration, the child, at baptism, received the ttame of Clara. It was from her mother's lips that she learnt the principles of that Faith which she was to adorn by her life ; and while yet a child she gave many proofs of her heavenly disposition. Even then she would secretly deprive herself of her own food, that she [night bestow it on the poor; and as she grew in years, she grew in grace. Then she wore under her rich outer garments a vest of hair ; and at a very sarly age, dedicated her whole heart and love to her Saviour. At this time, the name of S. Francis was in the mouth of every one. Men wondered to see, in an age when love had much declined, a pattern of the ieal and fervour of earlier years. The miracles ,vhich he performed shewed that the Lord's Arm was not straitened. The disciples who flocked round him seemed to promise a glorious period of restoration for the Church. Much more did the inhabitants of Assisi marvel at his holiness and power with God, whom a few years before they had scorned and rejected ; and, most of all, did Clara rejoice that 304 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. she might have such an one for her friend, her counsellor, her spiritual director. S. Francis, on the other hand, the whole end and aim of whose life was to spoil the kingdom of this world, and to bring in to his new institute its best and most loving hearts, rejoiced in the opportunity thus given him. Thus, in many mutual visits, they discoursed on heavenly things ; and Francis, like the friend of the Eternal Bridegroom, loved to dwell on the delights and glory which He hath promised to them that love Him — delights, so much the greater, by how much they love Him only — glory, so much the higher, by how much He had no sharers in the heart and affections of His Servants. And though he beheld the fervour and zeal of the Christian maiden, yet, knowing how crafty is the Enemy of all souls in blighting the fairest flowers, he was the more eager to transplant it into that lovely garden, the Monastick Life, where it would be sheltered from the cold blasts of this world, and might safely consecrate all its beauty to God. It was now Lent; and Clara, paying one of her accustomed visits to the Holy Friar, requested his definite instructions as to her future life. He gave what she asked ; and arraying herself in her richest attire, she, on the following Sunday, which was Palm Sunday (March 18, 1212), presented herself, with the rest of the people, in the great church of Assisi, to celebrate the joyful procession. It happened that, while i S. CLARA. 305 r*- )thers were busy in proyiding themselves with palm It )ranehes, she, through modesty, stood still and ! ipart ; and the Bishop, whether admiring her lumility, or moved, as the legend seems to say, 3j a Divine impulse, descended the altar-steps, and biimself placed in her hands the Sacred Symbol. That night, while her family were sleeping, Clara irose and arrayed herself for the last time in the ^arb of this world. She had a few friends, to whom she had revealed her purpose ; and with them, in the darkness and silence of midnight, she bent her waj to the church of S. Mary de Portiuncula, which ay without the city ^ates. The brothers were at Matins ; and through the tall narrow lancet glim- mered the light of those holy night-watchers. She approached the gate ; she knocked with a trembling hand; and some of the brotherhood issued forth with torches to receive her. Not at an unmeet day — not at an unmeet hour : the day, that on which the Church begins with sadder step to follow her Lord to the Sepulchre — the hour, that on which they came forth to meet Him with lanterns and torches, that they might conduct Him to that Passion of which it was the desire of Clara to be a fellow-partaker. Here, then, and before the Altar of S. Mary, the Virgin, once and for ever, renounced the world. Her worldly robes were laid aside ; the hair, in which others have taken so much pride, was cut off; the 2 D 2 306 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. solemn vestments of a nun were assumed ; and Clara of Assisi became the Bride of Christ. It was fit, says the chronicler, that a new and hoUer order of nuns should make their first profession in her Church who is the pattern of all purity, the most unspotted Virgin, and Mother of God ; but, the rite over, the new handmaid of Christ was conducted by her spiritual father to the church of S. Paul, there to remain till a way should be opened for her to the further service of God. In a few hours, the news was carried to her family that their daughter of so much hope had renounced the world. Relations and friends crowded to the church of S. Paul. They represented how base a thing, in the eyes of the world, was the lot she had chosen, how full of comfort and luxury the life she had forsaken, where God might nevertheless still be served, and her own salvation wrought out. They conjured her by the love she bore to them to return with them : they implored, they scoffed, they threatened. Clara remained firm. She knelt at the Altar, and seized its frontal, as fearing that she might be torn away from her retreat. She shewed them her head, marked with the religious tonsure. " I have put off my garments," she pleaded ; " how shall I put them on ? I have washed my feet ; ^ how shall I defile them ?" At length, her friends ceased from their cruel kindness, and left her in peace. From S. Paul she went to the monastery of S. CLARA. 307 i S. Michael ; and while there^ ohtained another triumph over the world. She had a younger sister^ named Agnes^ to whom she was hound in the bonds of even more than a sisterly love. Safe herself in the better part she had chosen, her heart's desire and prayer to God was that this loved one might follow her example. Earnestly did she intercede with Him that her Agnes might leave the vanity of the pleasures she had hitherto sought, the worthlessness of earthly beauty^ the perishableness of earthly aifection, for the eternal glory of the heavenly kingdom, and the unchange- able love of God ; and her prayer was long in vain, Easter Day passed ; she redoubled her intercessions. Low Sunday went by, and still she deemed them unheard. At length, on the Tuesday of that week,. Agnes presented herself. " I thank God, sweetest sister," said Clara, that He has given you to me thus, and has heard my prayers." For some days the two dwelt together in love and faith, and the younger drank in the words of holiness and obedience which fell from the elder. But her pro- fession was not yet made, when the heads of the family, indignant that another should have vdth- drawn from the world, rushed into the church where the sisters were in devotion, and, seizing Agnes, pro- ceeded, not without great violence, to draw her forth. What could two defenceless maidens oppose against a band of twelve men ? That by which earthly 308 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. strength is laid low, and the ministration of angels secured, even prayer. The sufferer cried out to her sister not to permit her to be removed from the service of Christ ; and God so heard the prayers of His servants, that the worldly attempt of her relations was supernaturally frustrated, and they themselves compelled to retire with shame and con- fusion. Then Agnes made her profession in peace ; and S. Francis himself gave her the tonsure. From the church of S. Michael, S. Clara went to that of S. Damian, the same in which S. Francis first received his call. And here this dove that was covered with silver wings, this despised follower of a despised Master, began to collect companions of her penitence and devotion. One by one they came in ; one after another renounced the world, and set their affections on a Better Country, that is, an Heavenly, All they gathered themselves together, and came to her. Her daughters were nursed at her side, and the desolate had many more children than the married wife. The whole district stirred itself up to the love of Christ. Mother invited daughter, and daughter mother ; sister held out to sister the blessings of a heavenly retirement from the world ; all dwelt with delight on, all sighed for, the Angelical hfe of S. Clara. And as her sisters increased, the rules of their institution became established ; and they took to themselves the Italian name of Le Povere Donne— The Poor Ladies. S. CLARA, 309 It was in the Convent of S. Damian that S. Clara^ )r the space of more than forty-one years, led a hfe ^hich in some degree was a foretaste of Heaven. Jut though she herself dwelt there in all humility nd self-devotion, the fame of her holiness could not e hid. Her sound went out into all lands, and her rords unto the ends of the world. Convents of the )rder of S. Clara rose everywhere ; duchesses and rincesses delighted to lay aside their jewels and their omp, and to serve the King That was crowned with 'horns. But, still, the House of Assisi was more lessed in its Ahbess than they. Many daughters, ad done virtuously, but she exceeded them alL Lnd the deeds and prayers of the new Order are not he least beautiful among the flowers and fruit ^Therewith the languishing Church is staid and omforted. Of her many virtues, how can we speak suffici-^ intly ? First and most conspicuous was that, which s the foundation of all virtues, humility. Little ielight had she in commanding, when, compelled hy 5. Francis, she, three years after her profession,, 3ecame Abbess of S. Damian. She delighted in ninistering to the sick : in washing the feet of those :hat served : in labouring herself, rather than in im- posing a task : she waited at the meal, she stood while others sat, she served in the refectory. And IS in her humility, so in her poverty she resembled the Crucified. It was as if the Blessedness of the 310 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. poor had ever been present to her heart. And as she gloried in the profession, so also she gloried in the appellation, of poverty. When she besought, from Pope Innocent, the confirmation of her rule, under the title mentioned above, the Pontiff remarked. This is the first time that such a privilege has been requested from the Apostolick See : and to shew his approval, he, contrary to the usual custom, signed the document with his own hand. Gregory IX., of blessed memory, advised the Abbess to relax the rigour of her rule, so far as, in consideration of the necessities of the times, to possess a small portion of landed property. " If you fear," he continued, ob- serving her hesitation, " the guilt of breaking a vow, I am ready to absolve you from it." " Holy Father," returned Clara, " I seek not to be absolved from the necessity of following Christ." No less remarkable was the rigour of her life, and her marvellous abstinence. Under her poor habit she wore a vest of hogs' bristles or horse-hair : she slept on the bare earth, or on a heap of vine-rods, with a log for her pillow. She fasted the two Lents, (the one, the forty days previous to Easter ; the other, our Advent extended from S. Martin's Day to Christmas,) on bread and water ; on the Monday, the Wednesday, and the Friday, during that period, she tasted no food. On the Sundays she allowed herself a little wine. Under such austerities her health gave way ; the sisterhood besought her to have compassion on S. CLARA. 311 er enfeebled frame ; but it was only on the inter- ^renee of the Bishop of Assisi and S. Francis, that le consented to give up her three days' entire bstinence. And to this she joined a marvellous fervency in rayer. Long after the compline had ceased, long fter the sisterhood had retired to their hard couches, light the Abbess be seen, wrestling for deeper love, nd fiiUer grace. And marvellously did she obtain ler heart's desire, and was not denied the request f her lips ; so that of her was that promise true, ^ Thou, O God, hast of Thy Goodness prepared for he poor." Wonderful also was her devotion to the i^assion of our Blessed Lord ; so that once, during )art of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, while, is the chronicle says, she was following with prayers ler prajdng Saviour, and suffering with Him, she ivas, in the contemplation of His love, carried out of bierself, and rapt in a trance, or dream, of deep de- ight, which she forbade the sister who tended her while thus insensible to worldly things, to reveal, while she herself continued to Hve in the flesh. Her love to the sisters, amidst her own rigour of life, is one of the most touching parts of her character. If, in the long winter nights, while she herself was wakeful in prayer or meditation, she thought that the bitter cold might hurt those over whom she was set, she would spread over them warmer covering ; if she saw any whose health, she imagined, unfitted 312 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. them for the full rigour of the rule, she relaxed it i; compassion to their needs ; if she noticed any trouble in mind, she would call her apart, and like a tru jQother endeavour to discover the cause of her sad ness. Was it the remembrance of earthly friends She bade her look forward to the time when sh< should be received into a glorious company of lovinj and beloved spirits. Was it the absence of worldlv amusements, and the pleasures of this life ? She bad( her be of good cheer, remembering at Whose Righ. Hand it is that there are rivers of pleasures for ever more. Was it the imprisonment of the convent that cast her down, and the longing desire to wander, ii it were but for a few hours, under the bright blue o: an ItaUan spring, among the lovely valleys of Assisi 1 Then she would remind her of the beauties whict eye hath not seen, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive ; the utmost bound of the ever- lasting hills, the River of the water of life, the Para- dise of God, the Tree that stands in the midst of it. And thus she sent away the tearful in smiles : thus she gave hope to the downcast, and patience to the brokenhearted. What wonder that she, whose life was one perpe- tual miracle, should have been privileged to work many wonders? The old chronicler fondly dwells on many of the deeds which God wrought by the hand of His servant ; he tells with delight how she cured a'lunatick, restored sight to a bhnd man, I S. CLARA. 313 earing to the deaf, speech to the dumb : all by the ign of that Cross, which she loved, which she bore, hich she set forth. But one instance of the power of er intercession may not be passed over in silence. When the Emperor Frederick II. was vexing the 'hurch, he retained in his pay a large body of Sara- ens, who committed the most frightful excesses in taly. And now, as the annalist speaks, they set ^eir face against the Lord's peculiar city, Assisi ; nd one of their most vigorous assaults was directed gainst the monastery of S. Damian, which, as I have aid, lay without the walls. The terrified sisters ashed to the sick-room of their Abbess, imploring er help ; and she, though confined to her couch by ifirmity, caused herself to be carried to the gate, pre- eded by the Holy Eucharist. There she poured ut her soul in prayer for her children, saying. Lord, ilt Thou deliver into the hands of the Pagans Thy efenceless handmaidens, whom I have brought up )r Thy Love ? At the same time a voice was heard, romising them protection. Again S. Clara prayed for le city ; and was assured, that though it should nffer, it should not be overthrown. And, as if by a idden influence of terror, the Saracens rushed from le walls which they had already begun to mount, ad sounded a hasty retreat. S. Clara was to be made perfect by suffering, or twenty-eight years her life was one continued Iness : and during that long time of trial, word of 314 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. complaint or discontent never passed her lips. Even then, when confined to her bed, she wrought with great skill and dehcacy corporals for the service of the Altar. But in this work she would not engage in a reclining posture; she caused herself to be propped up by cushions, and thus laboured, sending her works to the various churches near Assisi. At length the time came that she was to be called from a vale of misery to a paradise of immortahty. Her health grew worse and worse, and her daughters knew with bitter grief that she would be with them but a little longer. It happened that, in the year 1252, Rainald, Cardinald Bishop of Ostia, who was well acquainted with S. Clara, and the protector of her Order, happening to be near Assisi, paid her a visit, and found her fast sinking, but still retaining her full confidence in, and her love to, God. He administered to her the Holy Communion, and de- livered an exhortation to the sisters, whom she committed to his care. In the course of the next year, the Court of Rome was at Assisi ; and Pope Innocent IV., hearing that S. Clara was not expected to survive for more than a few days, paid her a visit. He found her, as the annalist says, awaiting her second and more blessed call, and, from the infirmity of her frame, even now entering on the enjoyment of everlasting health. Holding out his hand that she might kiss it, he bade her be of good cheer ; but she, out of her great humi- j| S. CLARA. 315 I • . ity, refused to kiss the Pontiffs hand^ and sought •ather to embrace his feet. Then^ with an angehek jountenance, she besought from him the absolution of ler sins ; and he, in giving it, exclaimed. Would that [ had need of such absolution only as this ! To it le added his blessing, in the most ample terms that he ;ould bestow it ; and she received the Holy Commu- uon from the hand of the Provincial. After this, ihe broke into a rapture of holy joy, and called on ler daughters to praise God with their whole hearts or the singular favours He had shewn to her. Her dster Agnes was standing by her couch, and weeping : ^It is God's will, my sweet sister," said S. Clara, ^ that I should depart ; but cease to mourn me, for fou shall very soon follow me, and yet not till you lave received great spiritual consolation." For seventeen days the Abbess lay between life md death, and without tasting food. When it be- ;ame clear that the Lord was standing at the door md knocking, she requested to hear the Passion of mr Saviour, to fortify her soul in the last agony, ^nd one of the brethren of the order, who stood by, jpake to her of the decease which He accomplished it Jerusalem with such fervour and affection, that ler departing spirit was much refreshed. As her iyes grew dim to the weeping sisters about her, they )pened on a glorious vision, which she endeavoured bo point out to the standers-by ; and thus, in an ecstacy of love and hope, she departed to the Lord on the eleventh day of August, 1253. "Blessed," 316 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. exclaims the annalist, " such a departure from the valley of misery, to her the entrance to a glorious life ! Now, instead of a slender provision for her journey, she feasts on the dainties of the heavenly citizens ; now, instead of sackcloth and ashes, she is beautified with the stole of Everlasting Glory." Scarcely had she departed, when the whole city of Assisi was at the gates of the monastery, believing that virtue would go forth out of so illustrious a temple of the Holy Spirit. The Podesta placed guards around S. Damian, and strict watch was kept the whole of that evening and the following night, lest any violent attempts should be made to carry off the relicks of the holy Abbess. On the next day, the Pope and the Cardinals hastened to S. Damian to attend her obsequies. And now the church was thronged, and the Franciscan Friars were beginning the Office of the Dead, when Innocent IV. bade them keep silence, and commanded that the Office for a Virgin should be used in its place, thus at once pro- claiming her a Saint. But the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia remonstrated : as a known and tried friend to the departed, he could do it without any suspicion. None, he said, could doubt the sanctity of the Abbess of blessed memory ; but caution was necessary for the satisfaction of others ; let the usual rites proceed now, and in God's good time the formal canonization might take place. This advice prevailed ; the Bishop preached with great eloquence on contempt of the world ; the Cardinal Priests surrounded the precious S. CLARA, 317 relicks^ and the office was concluded. A great multi- tude of people went with the solemn procession that bore the corpse to the church of S. George ; there the remains of S. Francis had reposed, and there it was thought meet that his eldest daughter in the faith should also sleep in Christ. So went the pro- cession on, with the Pope, the Cardinals, and other Prelates, amidst praise and chant and anthem ; and this was the consolation which the dying Saint had promised to her sister. For Agnes also, in a hrief space, was called to the marriage supper of the Lamb, and joyfully followed in death her whose steps she had imitated in life. Innocent IV. was prevented hy death from car- rying out the canonization of the Abbess of S. Damian; but the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, who succeeded under the name of Alexander IV., lost no time in procuring the necessary informations. Then it was, that the annalist, whom I have fol- lowed, drew up, by authority, his life of S. Clara ; and finally, in solemn conclave, it was determined that she should be added to the number of the Saints. In the great church at Anagni, in the presence of a vast concourse of spectators, and on the second anniversary of her departure. Pope Alex- ander, after discoursing on her virtues, enrolled her in the Holy Calendar of the Church. And she is yearly celebrated in the morrow of her decease, namely, on the twelfth day of August. 2 E 2 3^ 3^ iWargaitt of Cortona. PENITENT OF THE THIRD ORDER OF S. FRANCIS. A.D. 1297. TT may be that we have seemed to some to be making still narrower the narrow way ; it may be that the Lives of the Blessed Saints which we have taken in hand to write, may sadden the heartsr of some whom God would not make sad ; and that, by making what is difficult seem impossible, we may be running a risk of slaying the souls that should not die. Turn we then to the example of one who, after falling more foully than most, rose, in an energy of penitence, to such a height of grace, that Holy Church fears not to reckon her lot among the Saints. Margaret was born at Alviano, or Laviano, in the Diocese of Chiusi in Tuscany, about the year 1250. Losing her mother while yet a child, she gave her- self up to the worst impulses of a depraved heart. S. MARGARET OF CORTONA. 319 Neither the authority of her father, nor the fear of shame, nor the contempt of the world, were suffi- ient to restrain her from the open and scandalous commission of sin ; and for nine years she lived in adultery with a gentleman of Monte Pulciano. At the end of that time her lover left her with the promise of a speedy return. Night fell, and he came not ; morning dawned, and he came not ; noon passed, and still no tidings; night again returned, and Margaret was in despair. On the second day, a pet-dog, that had followed his master, returned to the Kouse, howling lamentably ; and seizing his mistress's iress, endeavoured to induce her to follow him. Overcome by his importunity, she at length went svith the beast ; he led her from the city, and in a iitch by the side of the high-road lay the corpse of lier lover, half-devoured by worms, and infecting the surrounding air. The horror of this sight, the fearful account vvhich her partner in sin had already given in, and :he appearance of him whom she had once loved so well, were blessed by God to her sudden conversion. She resolved, that, though the past could not be recalled, she would still take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence ; that if Penitence and Fasting and Prayer had ever prevailed, it should be now ; that if the strong man armed had ever been cast forth, he should be so here. She returned to her father's bouse; she threw herself at his feet; she conjured 320 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. him to forgive her, as he would hope to be forgiven ; she confessed her sins, she allowed the dishonour she had done to her family, and she finally prevailed. But her stepmother would not allow her to remain under the same roof with herself; she drove her* forth upon the world, without friends, without sub- sistence, without a home ; and thus exposed her to innumerable dangers, and removed her best safeguards. Tempted she was to sin, but she stood firm : — and as she one day sat under a fig-tree in her father's garden, resolved rather to die of hunger, than to return to her former course of life, she cried long and bitterly to the Saviour, that He Who had received S. Mary Magdalen, would have pity on her; would teach her to know her duty, and enable her to perform it. On the instant, she determined to go to Cortona, and to confess ; but first she repaired to the parish church of Alviano, a rope around her neck, publickly lamenting her sins, and protesting her purpose of change of life. Never was confession more sincere, never grief more deep than hers. She requested to be received into the Third Order of S. Francis, of which we have already spoken ; and the Fathers ex- posed her to a trial of three years before granting her request. Her life from that time forth was a prodigy of self-mortification ; and astonished the most fervent spirits of that then most fervent order. She loathed every thing that could please the senses ; S. MARGARET OF CORTONA. 321 he destroyed her beauty by the most violent mea- ures ; she lived on a small piece of bread, and a ew drops of water daily ; to tbe day of her death ihe had no other bed than the earth, no other pillow han a stone ; and when praying before a Crucifix or it the foot of the Altar, her grief was sometimes JO excessive that the bystanders thought her about ;o expire. The Enemy of Souls, finding her unassailable by lis former temptations, devised a new method of attack. He represented that such discipline was unparalleled and unnecessary; that she had done enough to mark her penitence, and might now allow herself a season for repose ; that if God had for- given her, she might forgive herself. But she resisted these suggestions, and only pressed for- ward with redoubled ardour on the narrow way of life. The more that she advanced in grace, the more she viewed herself as an object of loathing. Her greatest joy was to be despised ; her greatest sorrow to be honoured. It needed the strictest commands on the part of her superiors to prevent her going around the city with a cord about her neck, con- fessing the crime she had committed, and the scandal she had occasioned. For twenty-three years she led this penitent life ; at the end of that time, worn out by austerities, and consumed with continual sorrow, she committed her 322 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. spirit into God's Hands on the 22nd of February, 1297, aged about forty-eigbt years. No sooner had she expired than the whole city flocked to the cell where she had departed. She was buried in the church of the Franciscan Convent at Cortona ; and there, for more than two hundred years, she rested, revered in that city, but unknown to the Church at large. In 1517, Leo X. allowed her office to be celebrated in the Diocese of Cortona ; in 1623, Urban VIII. proceeded to her beatification, and extended his predecessor's permission to the whole order of S. Francis ; and finally, in 1728> she was canonized by Benedict XIII. Her incorruptible body reposes in the Observantine Convent at Cortona, formerly known by the name of S. Basil, but now under the invocation of that happy penitent by whose remains it is honoured. agnes! of Jlonte pulciano. VIRGIN AND ABBESS. A.D. 1317. IT was in a cloud of turmoil, and strife, and worldly care that the sun of the Church's thirteenth cen- tury went down. The new orders of Mendicant Friars had effected a great reformation at its com- mencement, and a brighter close at one time seemed to await it. The devotion of S. Louis of France was permitted to shew that an earthly crown, even in the days of declining love, did not preclude the attain- ment of the Celestial Diadem. There was never, per- haps, a more touching spectacle than that which the ruins of Carthage presented when, amidst the silence and tears of the Christian camp, this heavenly- minded monarch received Extreme Unction, when his attendants supported him in their arms to receive the viaticum, and the fervency of his charity inter- ceded for the infidels as well as his beloved France, 324 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. The Moors covered hill and valley. The white sails of the Sicilian fleet, glittering in the August sun, bore Charles to the African coast. The dying monarch lay on his bed of ashes, unconscious of the approaching succour, unmindful of the barbarian army. Utica, with its sandy shore, might be seen in the distance : as if provoking a comparison between the deaths of the Christian hero and the heathen philosopher ; between him who, by the study of Plato, learnt to hope for a possible immortality, and him who breathed out his soul in the words, "We will go into His Tabernacle ; we will fall low on our knees before His footstool !" Yes : and that same century witnessed two other ever-memorable departures. In a humble cell in the Cistercian Abbey of Fosse Neuve lies the Angelick Doctor, S. Thomas Aquinas. He that had pene- trated into the obscurest depths of scholastick philo- sophy ; he that, with a holy boldness, had explored the deepest mysteries of the faith ; he in whose adamantine reasonings the sceptical spirit of Dante found rest, that, instead of, Byron-like, being the bard of unbelief, he might be the poet of the Catholick Church ; he who spake so plainly, and so sweetly, that the poor flocked to hear him when he preached, — he was now about to die hke men, and to fall like one of the princes. " This," said he as he entered that Abbey, " this shall be my rest for ever ; here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein.'' S. AGNES or MONTE PULCIANO. 325 rhe brothers flocked around him, beseeching him to eave them some monument of his doctrine ; and the ieparting Saint dictated a brief exposition of the Canticles. He presented a blessed instance of the strength which the ruling passion has in death: in his Confession of Faith, which the Prior, according to custom, demanded, he explained clearly, and with Metaphysical expressness, the orthodox doctrine on the Holy Eucharist, And so he went to his reward. A different scene was that which presented itself to the dying eyes of S. Bonaventure. The Western Church had met in Council at Lyons. Gregory X. presided. Five hundred and seventy mitred pre- lates, as well Bishops as Abbats, were there. There were also a thousand ecclesiasticks of inferior rank. Thither came likewise the ambassadors from the long- separated Eastern Church ; and it must have been a sight for angels to behold, when, in the fourth session, the Union— the, alas, too brief union !— was complete ; when the Pope intoned the Te Deum, and the Mass began; when Epistle and Gospel were chanted in Latin and Greek ; when the Creed was intoned by Gregory, and taken up by the Canons of S. John of Lyons ; when Germanus of Constan- tinople and Theophanes of Nicsea, assisted by the Greek Archbishops of Calabria, sang the same Creed in Greek, twice repeating the Procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son ; and when the com- pleted Sacrifice cemented the completed union. And 2 F 326 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. it was amidst scenes like these that the meek and the loving S. Bonaventure, the Seraphick Doctor, went to his rest. The Church might look with joy on the hermit of Magella, Peter de Morroni, better known as S. Peter Celestin, on his humbleness, his patience, his love ; and when, after a vacancy of twenty-seven months, he ascended the chair of S. Peter, as Celestin V., she might well hope for a renewal of her fervour, and a reform of her discipline. And yet, alas ! already had she suffered much; the fresh rupture between Rome and the East, the Sicilian Vespers. But the simplicity and holiness of the aged hermit were ill suited for those that surrounded him ; he was wise to God, but not wise in this world ; he lamented the interruption of his communion with Heaven, and his very kindness and sanctity were abused and beguiled. After much thought and prayer, he made a constitution to the effect that any future Pope should be at liberty to resign his dig- nity ; and he himself gave the first and only instance of profiting by that constitution. Attired as a simple monk, he bade adieu to the weeping College, beseech- ing them to pray for the people whom he left without a head. Benedict Caietan, raised to the Chair of S. Peter by the name of Boniface VIII., formed a lamen- table contrast to his predecessor. Celestin was im- prisoned, and was happier in his confinement than S. AGNES OF MONTE PULCIANO. 327 ever he had been in the days of his dignity. Boni- face, without the talents, and, alas ! still more with- out the piety of S. Gregory VII., or Innocent III., imagined himself to be treading in their steps, by the harsh measures which he employed against the secular power ; and his famous bull, Clericis laicos, by which he strictly forbade, under pain of excom- munication, the clergy to offer any subsidy whatever to their king, filled the crowned heads of Europe with indignation. It was a storm through which an Innocent would have guided the Ship of the Church ; but Boniface was compelled to yield. By another bull, in which he professed to explain the Clericis laicos, he, in fact, abandoned it. He not only allowed the Clergy to offer a voluntary subsidy to the king, but he even permitted a king to exact from them, in case of necessity, pecuniary assistance, and the judge of this necessity was to be the monarch's conscience. But in the year 1302, he published his still more famous bull, Unam Sanctum, in which, after laying down that the temporal is subject to the spiritual power, and that, by conse- quence, the Chair of S. Peter has the right of deposing sovereigns, he concludes by defining that obedience to the Pope is necessary to salvation. Doubtless, he meant temporal as well as spiritual obedience ; but God did not permit the Western Church to be, by the decision of its Head, involved in that doctrine. 328 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. The fall of Boniface was near. The disputes between Philip the Fair of France and the Court of Rome ran higher and higher, until, in the assembly of Paris, William du Plessis openly accused the Pope of heresy, and presented twenty-nine articles of accusation against him. The King appealed from Rome to the Future General Council. Thirty-seven Prelates joined, though with some restrictions, in that appeal ; and Philip determined not to rest till the matter was decided. Boniface now felt that it was a struggle for life and death between himself and his opponents : he published a bull, in which he threatened the King and the Prelates of France with excommunication ; he suspended all the Doctors throughout France from all powers conferred by their degree till Philip should make reparation. Till the same period, he reserved to himself all bishop- ricks and abbeys in that kingdom that should become vacant ; and being unable to publish these bulls in France, he made a constitution, declaring that their publication in the hall of the papal palace, and their subsequent affixture to the gates of the great church in that city, where the Roman Court should happen at the time to be residing, should be, and should be held, a legitimate citation and admonition. But the emissary of the King of France was already in Italy : Boniface then residing at his native Anagni. William de Nogard arrested him there. For two days he remained in the custody of S. AGNES OF MONTE PULCIANO. 329 his enemies ; but then his fellow-citizens rose as one man, attacked the French, drove them out of the city, and set Boniface at liberty. Full of indigna- tion, he departed for Rome, and there, in little more than a month after his capture, died of grief and chagrin. These, one might have thought, were not the times for the formation of the saintly character. Let us see how it pleased God to magnify His grace in Agnes of Monte Pulciano. She was born in that Tuscan town, in the year 1297, her parents being well known for their riches, and scarcely less so, it should seem, for their piety. So well did they watch over their daughter, and so early did the grace of God influence her heart, that, at the age when others are only beginning to understand the value of this world's goods, she had already learnt to despise, and was longing to renounce, them. Her parents, knowing that it is written, " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God," would not oppose her wishes ; and in the ninth year of her age, they placed her in a Religious House, where great austerities were practised, and situated at no great distance from her native city. If they deemed that she could be terrified by the hardships 'of a monastick life, they must have been bitterly i disappointed ; if they resolved to place her in its most perfect state, in the hope that she might love and embrace its beauty, their hearts must have leapt 2 F 2 330 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. within them for joy. For, six years afterwards, she took the veil in a Dominican House, lately founded at Proceno. It is a village, or petty town, in the diocese of Orvieto. So soon did she distinguish her- self among the sisterhood by the fervency of her piety, and the ardour of her love, that she was appointed Abbess by Pope Nicholas IV., the prede- cessor of S. Peter Celestin. In that dignity, she bore herself with more humility than even in her noviciate, and former religious life ; for she knew that it is written, The more thou art exalted, hum- ble thyself in all things." Her countrymen, eager to avail themselves of so shining a light, having erected a Convent at Monte Pulciano, invited her to take the management of it. She complied, and introduced into it the Dominican rule. For fifteen years she tasted nothing but bread and water. She slept on the bare earth, with but a stone. Such were her austerities, that her confessor obliged her to moderate them, lest in pursuing an heavenly spirit she should too much neglect the earthly frame. She was privileged to possess the gift of miracles, but in a more especial manner that of prophecy. During the last years of her life she was sorely tried with illness, and she bore all with a patience imitative of His Who Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. At the age of forty, on the 20th of April, 1317, she was called to her reward S. AGNES OF MONTE PT3LCIANO. Her remains reposed for more than a century in the conventual church over which she had presided : they were then translated to the Dominican convent at Orvieto. Having heen beatified by Clement VIII., she was canonized by Benedict XIII. in the year 1726. ^^^^^^^ QUEEN. A.U. 13 TT has been well said that, when we are tempted to sin, we should think of our Christian name: thus should we call to mind the occasion at which we received it, and the strength then imparted to us ; we should remember Whose servants we profess to be, and Whom, if we fall, we shall dishonour ; and the very word that, so many times a day, we hear care- lessly, might be the means of bringing us to a better mind. And so it might also be, if we considered it with reference to that Saint, who, while on his earthly pilgrimage, bore the same name with ourselves ; but who now possesses the White Stone, on which is written the New Name, which no man knoweth, save he that receiveth it. What Mary, for example, i S. ISABEL. 333 i)Ut must think with joy of her example, who was he Mother of her Lord and God, — and yet humble )eyond the daughters of Eve? What Margaret )ut can meet temptation better, remembering how it vas overcome by her sainted namesake ? What heed vill a Catherine give to mistaken solicitations to join n the vain pleasures of this world : or how can a fuHa be ridiculed out of well-doing ? In like manner, m Ehzabeth, thinking of the great and unwearied charity and pity of her, whose life we are about to •elate, can hardly fail of feeling some of that love of 3eace and to the poor which shone so conspicuously n the illustrious Queen of Portugal. Isabel, more usually called Ehzabeth, was the daugh- ter of Peter III., afterwards King of Arragon, and was born in the year 1271. She received her name from that of her great aunt, S. Elizabeth of Bohemia, who tiad been canonized more than thirty years previously, [t seemed as if, from the moment she came into the world, to that in which she left it, she was ordained :o be a peace-maker : for, on occasion of her birth, her father was reconciled to her grandfather. King James the Holy, with whom he had some time lived in dis- sension. Elizabeth was educated for the first six years of her life by this grandfather, and was, probably, indebted, under God, to him, for the first seeds of that devotion, which afterwards brought forth in her such abundant fruit. She very early began to give signs of unusual 334 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. devotion ; and it was almost as early made manifest that her life would be spent where such piety would be rare indeed. Among those who were candidates for her hand, was Edward II. of England, on behalf of his son ; Charles, King of Sicily, and the Emperor of Constantinople for theirs. But her father, who tenderly loved her, was unwilling to part with her ; until the complaints of his people that he neglected the best means of strengthening his country, by the formation of a powerful alliance, prevailed. AfFonso III., King of Portugal, slept with his fathers, and was succeeded by Diniz, his son, — sur- named, from his great attachment to agriculture, the Husbandman. Having heard much of the beauty and accomplishments of Elizabeth, he sent ambassadors to request her in marriage, and they encountered the rival deputies of England and Sicily. Pedro was not long in deciding between the claimants. Diniz was the only suitor who was actually a king ; his dominions lay at no such remote distance from those of Arragon ; and no dispensation was, in his case, necessary, inasmuch as he was not related to the Princess, — as her other suitors were, — ^within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity. To Diniz, then, in the thirteenth year of her age, Elizabeth was espoused, and shortly afterwards set forth on her journey to her future home. Diniz was a prince, in many respects, of estimable character : he was amiable, a strict minister of lustice. S. ISABEL. 335 ireful of the prosperity of his kingdom, and, Hke zziah, he loved husbandry. On finding that his dde had been accustomed to bestow more time on fivate devotion, than was usual in her station, he )ok care that her habits should not be interfered ith ;— and, if he was no help, at least he was no indrance, to her religion. She, for her part, con- ived, with a truly Christian art, to comply vdth all is wishes, to study that which pleased him, to make is palace the abode of happiness; while she yet bated nothing of her extraordinary rigour of life, for she kept three Lents in the year,) and scrupulously measured out her hours of retirement and devotion. SrOD blessed her marriage with two children : AfFonso, ho afterwards sat on the throne of Portugal, and lonstan9a, married to Ferdinand IV., of Castille. King Diniz, during the earlier years of his marriage, ^as notoriously unfaithful to his Queen ; — and many vere her sighs, and tears, and prayers, that he might )e brought to a true sense of the evil of his ways, n the meantime, she abated nothing of her affection 0 him, and even took care of the education of his latural children, xlnd, in the end, she was privileged ;o behold his penitence for the past, and change of ife for the future. While he still led an immoral Hfe, an event lappened, which proved the care of God for His lervant Ehzabeth. She had a page, by name Pedro, whom she was accustomed to employ in the distri- 336 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. bution of her alms. Francisco, another page, envy- ing his companion the favour of his royal mistress, suggested to Diniz, who, conscious of his own sins, was naturally induced to be jealous of others, — that Elizabeth shewed an undue fondness for Pedro. Diniz summoned a lime-burner, — others will have it a baker, — whom he was in the habit of employing. " There is," said he, "a page in my court, whom I have condemned to death for a heinous crime : but I have my reasons for wishing that his execution may be secret. I shall send him to you to-morrow with the message, — ^ Is the King's errand accomplished?* — and you will forthwith throw him into the kiln.'* On the morrow, Pedro was dispatched with the appointed message ; but, passing by an open church, he entered, heard the Mass then concluding, and another after it. In the meantime, Diniz grew impatient; and sent Francisco to inquire whether the business was dispatched. On which, he was immediately seized, and thrown into the kiln. Pedro arrived shortly after, and was sent back with the intelligence that the King's commands had been obeyed. Diniz adored God's hand in this wonder- ful escape, — and nevermore doubted his Queen's fidelity. Her son, Aifonso, surnamed the Brave, on reaching manhood, rebelled against his father. Elizabeth did all that she could to reconcile the King with his child; but even her zeal and love could not prevent a bloody, S. ISABEL. 337 but indecisive, battle. On a suspicion of partizan- ship with Aifonso, she was banished by her husband bo Alanquer ; and there, according to the Wise Man's saying, whatever was brought her, she took cheer- Wly, and was patient when she was changed to a low estate. It pleased God to touch the heart of the King ; and he recalled her to him, and mani- fested deep affection for her, during the remainder of lis life. But the breach between himself and his son was not perfectly healed, and Diniz, now an old man, worn out with the cares of a forty-five years' reign, and this new sorrow, fell ill. Then it was that Elizabeth shewed the fulness of her love to him : she never left his chamber but for church, and caused prayers to be said throughout the kingdom for his true repentance, and happy end. His death, which happened at Santarem, on the Epipjiany, 1325, is said to have been truly Christian. After the decease of her husband, his Queen retired to the Clarissine Convent of S. Clara, at Coimbra, which she had herself refounded. At first, she did not enter, as, on many accounts, she wished to do, the Third Order of S. Francis ; because she was anxious to retain her royal property, for the purpose of distributing it among the poor. She led, however, a monastick life ; and, in her pious ofiices, was assisted by her daughter-in-law. Dona Beatrice, then Queen. 2 G 338 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. War having broken out between the Crowns of Castille and Portugal, and the two armies being already in the field, she determined, though in a weak state of health, to set forward on a mission of peace. Neither the intense heat of a Portuguese June, nor the remonstrances of her servants, had power to detain her ; and she arrived in the Portuguese Camp at Estremoz, in a burning fever. She succeeded in her holy purpose : and the physicians persisted in asserting that there was no danger. She was attended by her son and daughter ; and received marvellous comfort from a heavenly appearance, with which she was favoured. At length, on the evening of the fourth day of July, 1336, with most sweet composure, she went to receive that blessing which is promised to the peace-makers. She was held in great veneration throughout Portugal, from the very period of her decease ; but not formally added to the Catalogue of the Saints, till canonized by Urban VIII., in 1625. VIRGIN. FT is by different ways that God calls His servants to their home : it is through different trials that Re makes them fit for Himself. She of whom we low write, neither glorified Him hy Martyrdom^ nor vitnessed a good confession before the powerful of his world : she founded no convent : she renewed he zeal and the love of no order. The Cross which )he bore was laid upon her : the sick-room was her imphitheatre — angels her spectators : Christ Him- self judge of her conflict, and rewarder of her dctory. Lydwina was born in the town of Schiedam, a place situated at the mouth of the Meuse, and in the year 1380. Even in the cradle she is said to have suffered greatly, as if by a warning of, and a prepa- ration for, future trials. But as she grew up, her 340 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. health improved, and she was noted, even in child- hood, for gravity beyond her years, and the love with which she listened to heavenly things. Her beauty procured her lovers of the first rank, and that although her father was in an inferior station. He was desirous that his daughter should accept one of these suitors, but her heart was already set on the more perfect way. Her tears, and the advocacy of her mother, procured her permission to follow her own desires ; and she went on increasing in love and holiness, intending, doubtless, in due time, to take the veil. But God had ordered it otherwise. At the age of fifteen, she was deprived, by a severe illness, of the beauty which had attracted so many, and, finding herself the object of contempt to those who once had professed to love her, she had yet the consolation of knowing that it is a spiritual and not an earthly beauty that is acceptable in the eyes of the Heavenly Bridegroom. On her recovery, she was persuaded by her companions, (it being now the middle of a hard winter,) to accompany them to their sports on the ice : and there, through the thoughtlessness or misfortune of one of her playmates, she was thrown down, and so seriously injured that her life was despaired of. There were some in the city, who, reasoning like Job's friends, were disposed to behold, in this affliction, a visitation of God's anger; but they who were best acquainted with the sufferer. B. LYDWINA. 341 interpreted it far otherwise. "It is/' they said, that Lydwina may be a more illustrious example of patience ; that her example may lead others the more cheerfully to take up their cross : this sick- ness is not unto spiritual death, but for the glory of God." Medicines and surgery were employed in vain; the parents spent all that they had ; the daughter was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. There was at this time a physician in Holland, by name Godfrey Scuderdank : a man not more illustrious for his skill, than for his great charity to the poor. He came to visit Lydwina, he inquired into her case, he admired her patience. " This illness," said he, " passes all the known powers of medicine. In my opinion, the God of nature is about to shew the riches of His Grace, in this maiden, in a manner beyond His wont. Would only that He had been pleased so to order events, as that she had been my daughter! " And yet, at first, patience had not her perfect work in the sulFerer. An internal imposthume caused her such intense suffering, that she could not remain quietly in her bed, and was, for some time, as one distracted. When, by the very violence of her exertions, it broke, she was not long permitted to enjoy comparative ease. The various and horrible diseases with which she was tried, accurately related by her biographer, are too fearful to bear narration. 2g2 342 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. She suffered more than human nature seemed capable of suffering, and that in every possible way ; and yet her strength continued, and she was enabled to suffer more. For the first three or four years of her illness, the Grace of God was, comparatively speaking, but little manifested in her. At the end of that time, her confessor, whose name was John Pott, recom- mended to her the continual meditation of the Saviour's Passion, as the only medicine available to her case. She remonstrated on the difficulty of fixing her mind, through the violence of her pain, on any one subject. " You [can," said the Priest, "do nothing by your own strength. But, behold Christ hanging on the Cross, and you will be led into all truth ; listen to Christ, and you will be taught all wisdom ; bear the yoke of Christ, and you will find all rest ; imitate Christ, and you will attain all perfection." On hearing this, the holy virgin, says the chronicler, turned her hand to the battle : and, after receiving the Eucharist, she was comforted and supported in a supernatural manner. She divided the Passion into seven parts, answerably to the seven Canonical Hours of the Church : so that not a moment of her time but had its own subject for meditation. Thence- forward, though her disease grew worse, her comfort grew greater : and she was wont to say, — " It is not I that suffer, but Christ That suffers in me." Margaret, Countess of Holland, hearing of her B. LYDWINA. 343 wonderful tortures, and still more wonderful patience, paid her a visit, accompanied by her physician. From that time till her death, — a space of thirty years, — Lydwina hardly tasted solid food, and hardly slept. Her mother was taken from her, and all that she left, though most poor herself, Lydwina gave to the poor : she constantly refused the luxuries and comforts which her friends sent her, desiring in al] things to be made like unto Him Who emptied Himself of His glory, that He might make man rich. It was about this time that she first received the power of working miracles, of which several are related ; but she herself was the greatest miracle of all. And those by whom she was surrounded were rather her trials than her comforts : but she bore all things with patience, and blessed God that He had given her an opportunity of doing good to those that did ill to her. An offer having been made of rebuilding her little cottage, she refused it for herself, but added, that if, after her decease, any one would take upon him to found a hospital on that spot, she would pray God to speed him. This wish came to the ears of the son of the good old physician, Godfrey ; and he, who seems to have inherited his father's disposition, no less than his father's wealth, took care, in process of time, that it should be carried into effect. Lydwina had never learnt to read ; and, had it not been for her heavenly art of meditation, the time 344 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. would indeed have appeared long to her. But her Crucifix was a book, whence she continually learnt some new lesson of love and faith : and besides the visits of her confessor, she enjoyed the intercourse of other servants of God. Among these were John Brugman, Provincial of the Franciscans, who has left a long and minute account of her trials: John Gerlac, her relation; and John Walter, her confessor after the decease or removal of that good man, who first suggested to her a continual medi- tation on the Passion. Both these have also left memoirs of her. As she accustomed herself to the severity of her trial, and was enabled more and more easily to abstract her mind from herself, she passed much of her time in intercession. She was much tried by the groundless suspicions and harsh behaviour of her parish priest ; but, when inquiry was made into his conduct, she procured his forgiveness from the Bishop. Her afflictions continued down to the very last, but her consolations abounded even more than they. At length, she was called from this world, on the 14th of April, 1433. They raised to her memory a magnificent shrine in the church of Schiedam, which, although she has never been canonized, took her name. Her father's house became, afterwards, a Convent of the Third Order of S. Francis, till the Calvinists demolished the chapel, and turned the building into a hospital for orphans. 33* Coletta mm* VIRGIN, AND REFORMER OF THE ORDER OF S. CLARA. A.D. 1447. VirE are fallen on the evil days of the Church. Faith had grown weak, and love grown old ; niquity abounded, and strife increased. The eastern empire was tottering to its ruin ; pressed by the arms of the Infidels, distracted by civil broils, overrun with heresy, it longed for, and again and again at- tempted, an union with the Western Church. But God ordered it otherwise ; the sceptre trembled in the feeble hands of the last successors of the Palse- ologi, and a long dark night was about to set in on that which had once been the brightness of the East. And the Western Church was suifering, if less from without, yet more from within, than her falling sister. On the death of Pope Gregory XI., com- 346 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. menced, by the double election of Urban VI. and Clement VII. , that great Schism which rent Europe for fifty years. Urbanists and Clementines alter- nately succeeded. The two Popes thundered excom- munications against each other. Castille and Arragon, Navarre and France supported Clement; England, with the greater part of the other European states, recognised Urban. Grievous crimes went unpunished, for the contending Pontiffs feared to alienate the minds of their adherents ; money was raised by iniquitous means ; men's minds were per- plexed and distressed ; the Vaudois and Turlupins in France, and the Wickliffites in England, sowed the seeds of heresy ; John Huss and Jerome of Prague arose in Bohemia to vex the faithful. Various me- thods were devised to conclude the schism; its originators went to their account, but still it lived in their successors ; and the Council of Pisa, while it had strength to add another Head to the Church, had not the power of crushing those that already existed. This was reserved for the fathers of Constance : John XXIII., the successor of the head whom Pisa had given to Western Christendom, was deposed; Gregory XII., representing the Urbanists, resigned, and was rewarded with the dignity of Dean of the Sacred College ; and Benedict XIII., the successor of Clement, also deposed by the Council, feebly main- tained the schism in Arragon. Had the fathers of Constance reformed the Church in its head and its B. COILETTA BOILET. 347 lembers^ before electing a successor of S. Peter, the sligious revolution in the next century would pro- ably have been spared. But by a fatal mistake tiey first raised MartinV. to the Triple Crown, and with is -election the power of the Council virtually ended, icss than twenty years after, the courageous Fathers f Basle striving to accomplish what those of Con- tance had left undone, wrestled with Eugenius IV. for he sovereignty of the Church. God willed that he latter should prevail, — a most unhappy victory or the Church of Borne ! But, even in those troublous times, the Church ;loried in His Saints : S. Bridget of Sweden, S. Ca- herine of Sienna, S. Andrew Corsini, S. Vincent ?errer, all these have a name that is honourable for sver : — and she of whom we are about to write, though lot as yet formally canonized, has virtually received he honour of beatification, for her office is, with the concurrence of the Holy See, used by the Franciscan 3rder. Coletta Boilet was born at Corbie, in Picardy, in :he year of grace 1380. Her father, whose name {vas Robert, was a carpenter ; her mother, Margaret, • had a high reputation for piety. Both had a sin- gular devotion to S. Nicolas ; and, in consequence, bestowed on their daughter a name derived from his. From the age of four years, Coletta was noticed for her love of prayer and retirement ; those of her own age in vain invited her to join their sports and occu- 348 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. pations ; she rarely went beyond her father's house, and^ while in it, chiefly confined herself to one room. Fearing that her beauty might become a snare, and impede her progress to the attainment of everlasting beauty, she prayed that it might be removed, and her supplication was heard. It could not be, but that her holiness of life should attract the notice of some of the religious in the then famous Abbey of Corbie ; and her father, informed by them of the rare graces which God had bestowed on his Coletta, allowed her to follow her own will, and put no hin- drance in the way of her spiritual progress. He, in the meanwhile, kindling at the example of his daughter, gave himself up to be the peace-maker of the neighbourhood, and many and solid were the re- conciliations which he effected. And the promise of inheriting the earth was amply fulfilled in him. For he was enabled to found a kind of hospital for the poor ; and for women who, at his exhortations, had turned from ungodliness to an honest life. His wife was in the habit of confessing and communicating at the least weekly ; and thus this happy family went on in preparation for that Crown into the possession of which they have doubtless long since entered. The factions of Orleans and Burgundy were how desolating the fair land of France ; foul murders, unnatural enmities, fearful perjuries, were every- where the result. Ah !" said the humble Saint, on being informed of some of these gross crimes, B. COLETTA BOILET. 349 " you would call these nothing, could you see the wickedness of my heart In process of time it pleased God to remove the father and mother of his chosen one out of the miseries of this sinful world ; and Coletta, after their departure, distributed among the poor what they had left her, and entered the society of the Beguines. These religious held a midway position between nuns and the world ; they were not bound by vows, and they were not confined to a convent ; in other respects their life was monastick. In charity and the open display of religion they were of inestimable be- nefit to Flanders and Picardy, where they chiefly abounded. But she sighed for a stricter obedience and a more rigid discipline. She took the habit of the Third Order of S. Francis, to prepare her way for a yet more ample renunciation of the world, resolving, like S. Adelaide, to count well the cost ere she undertook so goodly an edifice, to consider well her strength, ere she entered on a more arduous combat with Satan. Three years thus passed, she became a follower of S. Clara, or, to use the language of the time, an Urbanist, because the rule had been mitigated by Pope Urban IV. But even here she found not that which she sought. The institute had lost much of its original lustre ; the fine gold had become dross, the wine mixed with water ; and Coletta was stirred up to attempt a reformation. But, conceiving it 2 H 350 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. necessary to prepare herself for so arduous a task by redoubled austerities, she obtained leave of the Abbat of Corbie to pass three years in a solitary hermitage. Fortified by fasting and prayer, she set forth on her labour of love, and her first attempt was in the Clarissine nunnery at Amiens. Her efforts seemed to be in vain ; and she then determined to obtain a confirmation of her plan, and authority for her mission, from the reigning Pontiff. And here we are called on to notice a wonderful, and to some of us in these days, a comforting dis- pensation of Providence. The Church of France was at this time in a state of schism, as following the faction of the Clementines ; Coletta, as a member of that Church, was herself in schism ; and the Pontiff to whom she applied was the Anti-pope Benedict XIII. Coletta went to Avignon, and requested this pre- i late to undertake the reformation of the Franciscan Order, imploring that herself might be allowed to minister to the Clarissines. Benedict issued a bull, in which he constituted her Superintendent of the Reformation of those nunneries, and dismissed her honourably to her holy work. Empowered, although against her will, with these injunctions, she went through the Dioceses of Paris, Beauvais, and Amiens, carrying out her reform. But the difficulties she experienced were great. She was derided as a visionary, she was reviled as a fanatick ; and she B. COLETTA BOILET. 351 rejoiced in being counted worthy to suffer reproach for the Name of Christ. It was not till she retired into Savoy, that her reform began to be estabUshed on a firm footing ; and soon afterwards it was received in France, Flanders, and Spain. Those who adopted it were called, in order to distinguish them from Urbanists, The Poor Sisters of S. Clara. There were not wanting monasteries which submitted them- selves to the reform of the Saint ; and those who did so were known by the name of Colettines, till Leo X., in 1517, united all the reforms of the Franciscan Order under the general title of Observantines. The humihty of Coletta was not less conspicuous in her elevation than it had been in her low estate. Hearing that some of the Clarissine nunneries were in the habit of praying for her as their mother, she strictly forbade their use of that title, constantly subscribing herself their unprofitable servant, and unworthy beadswoman. Her confessor, Henry de Balma, on whose advice she greatly rehed, occupied himself in writing an account of her hfe and labours. On learning this, she charged him to deliver the book into her hands, and forthwith committed it to the flames. The General of the Franciscan Order, on pubhshing some constitutions for that society, in the framing of which he had received the benefit of Coletta' s advice, could not refrain from interming- hng somewhat in her praise. It was observed, that whenever they were read over, it caused the 352 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. greatest distress and pain to this humble follower of Christ. Besides the convents which she refounded, Coletta founded seventeen Religious Houses, and in these, at the desire of Benedict, she performed the duties of a vigilant Abbess. "My sister," it was her wont to say, " you must pay good heed to this : when your Superior enjoins or forbids anything, you have no longer any right to your own sense or to your own will. You must obey for the love of Jesus Christ, Who while He dwelt with us on earth, did, in all things, according to the will of His Heavenly Father. And it is better to have the habit of giving up, for God's sake, our own designs, than to possess all the riches of this world ; whereas there is no easier nor broader way to eternal damnation than the indulgence of self-will." She had the same love of poverty that so remark- ably distinguished S. Francis : she ever went barefoot, constantly refused both mattress and pillow, and carried her hatred to riches to the Cistercian length of exclaiming against the over-decoration of churches. She used her utmost influence in putting down the sacrilegious custom of holding wakes in the House of God, and frequently succeeded. Her devotion to the Passion of our Blessed Lord, was, as has so often been the case with the greatest Saints, more peculiarly remarkable. Every Friday, from six in the morning till six in the evening, B. COLETTA BOILET. , 353 she meditated incessantly on that suhject ; and, doubtless, she hence drew that fervent charity, and that deep penitence, by which she was distin- guished. She daily repeated the whole Psalter, besides the seven Penitential Psalms, with the Litany : and, constantly, when she went abroad, during those troublous times. Litanies were her safeguard and delight. Once, while travelling with several sisters, in a part of the country of which the dialect was unknown to her, she fell among thieves ; and we have, in this case, one of the few instances in which God has been pleased, in these latter days, to bestow on his servants the gift of tongues. For S. Coletta not only addressed the men of blood in their own language, but her words were blessed to her safety, and to the obtaining their protection. At twelve o'clock daily, she withdrew herself from the society of others to follow in thought the agonies of her dying Lord. And to that Cross, on which our Salvation was wrought, she ever bore an especial love and devotion. Multitudes of her miracles are recorded : one in particular shall here be related. There dwelt in the country where the Saint then was a man and woman of most abandoned life, who, for some execrable crime, were condemned to capital punishment. After their condemnation, it seemed as if they were endeavouring to crowd into the brief remainder of their life the greatest possible amount 2h2 354 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. of sin : so horrid were the blasphemies, so dreadful the curses which they uttered. A certain holy- hermit, who happened to be present, and who knew the efficacy of the intercession of Coletta, hastened to her, and besought her to pray for those v/retched sinners. Raising her hands to Heaven, she repeated the fifty-first Psalm ; and, ere she had completed it, the hearts of the malefactors were touched, and they died with such expressions of penitence, as to give reasonable hope of their salvation. Her whole life was one continued Cross. — Both in body and in mind she was a continued sufferer ; but pain and anguish only made her cling the closer to Him, into Whose likeness she desired and rejoiced to be transformed. Nor was she without celestial consolations : the visits of Angels, the internal comfort of the Spirit of God, the conversation of holy men : — all these were her delights in the house of her pilgrimage. Many instances are given of her power of divining the secrets of the heart. One shall suffice. She was visited by a Bishop, a man of reputation for goodness and learning, but secretly ambitious, and at that time endeavouring to raise himself to the Cardinalate. "Two things," she said, "I would warn you : the one, to be content with your present station ; the other, to think of the great shortness of life." The Prelate, thinking her words spoken at random, went to Rome in pursuit of his aim ; but B. COLETTA BOILET. 355 was shortly afterwards removed from the world. She is also said to have foretold the decease of Martin V., as well as the schism that ensued in :he Church, and the termination of the Council )f Basle. It was at the Clarissine Convent in Ghent, that she was called to her reward. It was after Mass, m Saturday, that she took to her hed, exclaiming, 'This is the last couch that I shall need." She ;hen called for the black veil, which she had received pn making her profession, and lay for forty-eight bours with scarcely a sign of life. They olfered her I pillow: but she rejected it. At four o'clock on :he morning of the 6th of March, 1447, in the Dresence of the whole sisterhood, she departed to ler rest. She was buried in the church of the Monastery )f Bethlehem, and, though not canonized, considered I Saint. Three hundred years after her departure, n 1747, her remains were removed from that spot; ind God honoured her memory by many miracles, rhese were properly attested, and sent to Rome; )ut no steps have yet been taken towards her formal anonization. It remains to see whether the fourth entenary of her decease, now so soon approaching, nay lead to a different result. E are approaching the time when the Western ^ " Church, hitherto huilded as a city that is at unity with itself, was to be rent by internal dis- sensions, and weakened by external defection. Even now, the cry of danger was at her gates ; even now, those, that were to sow discord among her children, were arising ; even now, the holiest of her sons fore- told the approaching storm. As yet, all was out- wardly peace. Still the Daily Sacrifice was offered ; still the solemn procession went forth; still the innumerable offices of Monastick Devotion ascended to the Mercy-seat. But a change was at hand. Mahomet had overthrown the ancient empire of the East, and Constantine Palseologus had fallen like Wtronm of iWiIan. VIRGIN. A.D. 1497. S. VERONICA OF MILAN. 357 Christian and like a King. The Ottoman arms ireatened Eastern Europe ; there were prayers and recessions ; there were treaties and negoeiations ; id still the danger became more imminent, iohemia was in open heresy : but Satan was divided gainst himself. The Taborites and the Hussites took p arms against each other : the latter proved the fcronger of the two parties ; and the city of Tabor Al before their vengeance. The See of Rome was mbroiled in the quarrels of the petty Italian princes : )r Sicily and Naples the successor of S. Peter lost aily his spiritual power. But ^neas Sylvius, who ssumed the name of Pius 11., had higher and nobler iews. In spite of infirmities and age, in spite of be coldness of some and the opposition of others, e set on foot a Crusade against the Turks : not ontent with exhortation, he had recourse to example, nd determined himself to embark in the Christian rmament. But he was called from his labours at Lncona, and the project fell to the ground. In England, the wars between the two Hoses raged dthout pity, and without hope of termination. Lmidst tumult and blood, rapine and violence, the till small voice of the Church was unheard : and, Loubtless, but for the contest of York and Lancaster, lenry VIII. would have found a check, in the eligion of his people, to his own madness. France >egan to breathe after the miseries of the English Qvasion ; but Louis XL, however outwardly religious, 358 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. proved himself, by his secret crimes, the enemy of the Church- Here the ecclesiasticks were strugghng hard for the independence of their Bishops and the Pragmatick Sanction : Rome tempted the monarch by the superior Royal Prerogatives of the Concordat. Spain was about to assume the gigantick power which it wielded in the following century: Ferdinand of Arragon was wedded to Isabella of Castille, and the kingdom of Granada trembled to its ruins. Here, the terrors of the Inquisition were about to repress heresy, but not by the arms permitted to the Catholicks. The fleet of Columbus was about to lay open the treasures of an unknown world : a world where Spanish avarice, so it might gain the gold of this world, cared little to spread the knowledge of the One True Pearl. Portugal, earning the title of the Most Faithful Kingdom, sent out Missionaries with her Indian fleets, the happy efi"ect of whose labours was to appear in the next century. Europe was awakening to the study of the classical writers : that study, which, unhappily, the Church failed to wield to her own purposes. Printing, a true Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, — alas! of evil more than good, — was waking into life: Paganism of design, of thought, of feeling, was coming in like a flood : the great Italian masters of the fifteenth century were Pagans in heart. From Italy, the inundation poured over France and Spain ; and, ere Henry VIII. had ascended the throne, it VERONICA OF MILAN. 359 ad infected even England, the stronghold of hristian design. Musick only, of the arts, still alighted to be the handmaid of the Church; and •alestrina, with his almost inspired melodies, recalled to its high and holy ends. It was not,— such an age never was, — an Age of aints. Doubtless, among the decaying discipline of lonasteries, many pure-hearted souls clave to their JoD : doubtless, in spite of commendams and onatives in expectation, many Bishops and Abbats temmed the tide of general corruption. If the LubeUeving times of Henry VIII. could boast of a Varham, so could those of his predecessor glory in a West and a Fox. S. John of Capistran, and S. Catherine of Bologna, were the honour of Italy ; he great Bessarion still flourished at Borne; and Didacus reflected, in Andalusia, the virtues of his naster, S. Francis. But we will rather speak of one, lot great in this world's greatness ; not privileged to •onvert kingdoms, to reform orders, to be, while iving, known to the Church : but, doubtless, great n the sight of the Lord, Whose she was on earth; md great in the bhss whereunto she is now entered n the Kingdom of Heaven. Veronica was born near Milan, in theyear 1445, when ;he schism between the Councils of Basle and Florence «ras drawing to a close. Her parents were extremely poor : hey wrought with their hands for their daily ^read, and yet were rich in good works and prayers. 360 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. The father of Veronica was noted for the earnestness with which he depreciated any article that he sold, if he knew or suspected it to he unsound or defective. The poverty of the parents did not permit them to send their daughter to school : and she thus grew up without learning to read. But prayer more than sup- plied the want of mental culture ; and constant attend- ance at Catechism made up to her the need of written books. She had learnt the secret of joining fervency of spirit with diligence in business ; she knew that she was called to labour, and she laboured heartily, as to the Lord. Among her companions, she was noted for obligingness and great humility ; by her employers, for obedience and faithfulness. It is easy to read of these things : it is most hard to realise them. Enter one of the mills at Man- chester or Birmingham ; mix with the factory girls : how should we feel, if we were told that one of them, distinguished from her fellows neither by parts nor demeanour, neither by beauty nor knowledge, should in future times be chronicled by Holy Church, as one of the Saints of the Most High ? It is good thus to bring the matter home to ourselves, that we may learn a due esteem for the blessed estate of poverty. In reading of the Saints of other days, that they laboured with their hands, distance and age seem to throw grace and loveliness round the scene : such labour affects our minds very differently, from the contemplation of a similar employment in our S, VERONICA OF MILAN. 361 H)wn age. We picture to ourselves a disciple of S. Francis or S. Dominic, taking his staff, and going forth on his mission of love ; we look and we admire; we invest the Friar with that romance, which is so commonly, and yet so foolishly, attributed to the mediaeval Church. Do we admire the romance, or appreciate the reality ? It is easy to see. Look at ijthe Friar of these days : let him be in all respects the equal of those that are gone to their rest ; watch him as he mingles among the steerage passengers of the packet, as he enters the third class of the railway car ; mark how the polished gentleman and the sub- stantial citizen shrink from associating with him ; — how the meanest bed and the worst fare are thought good enough for him ; — how he is deemed unworthy of, how he is banished from, the company of those who make any pretensions in this world. It is a spectacle which S. Francis would have admired; it is one from which many of us would shrink. And yet, how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God ! God has different ways of teaching His Saints. S. Bernard, the mellifluous Doctor of the Church, learnt more, when at work in the fields, from agricul- tural images and pastoral sounds, than at home from books or men. Veronica, on the contrary, when labouring in the vineyard or the corn-field, heard nothing and saw nothing of external objects ; her whole heart was with her Saviour ; her whole faculties 2 I 362 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. absorbed in the contemplation of Him. If she spoke, it was of His praise ; if she held silence, it was to meditate more uninterruptedly on Him. It is not wonderful that she should daily have felt a greater longing for the religious life ; — and she cast her eyes on the Augustinian sisters of S. Martha, at Milan, where the rule was unusually strict. But she was met by a great difficulty. She could neither read nor write ; she could not afford to engage the services of a master ; and she does not appear to have been assisted by any natural quickness of parts. For three long years she toiled incessantly, by day in manual, by night in mental labour ; and the diffi- culties, at first apparently insurmountable, gradually vanished ; the great mountain became a plain. But Veronica, while almost hopeless of success, was en- couraged by the appearance, as she slept, of a glorious figure, in whose features she recognised those of Our Lady. "Be of good courage," it said ; three letters are sufficient for you to know. The first, purity of intention, in loving all things for the sake of God, and Him only for His own sake ; — the second, never to murmur; — the third, to meditate each day, for a fixed time, on the Adorable Passion." At length her faith and perseverance received its reward. She was admitted to the convent of S. Martha ; and there distinguished herself by the same graces which had shone forth in her while she yet S. VERONICA OF MILAN. 363 Dccupied a lower station. In the only thing where lier will ran contrary to that of her superiors, the Dbservance of a stricter discipline than they would illow, she yielded at once ; knowing that to obey is better than sacrifice. And thus she went on preparing herself for her great reward. It pleased God to try her by a sickness of three years, in which she rapidly grew meet for glory. Her tears were almost continual ; her observances af the rule unrelaxed. " I must work/' she said, while it is day." And so, in faith and much patience she went to her reward on the 28th of January, 1497. She was beatified by Leo X. twenty years after her departure, and canonized in the Roman Marty rology by Benedict XIV. in 1749. Catherine tie ^ittt IHERE is a time," saith the Wise Man, to keep silence, and a time to speak." It may perhaps appear to some, that with the disunion of our own from the rest of the Latin Church, our time to keep silence ought to begin ; that however wonderful God may have still been in His Saints, we are separated from all those not in our own communion by a great gulf ; and that the recital of their deeds can tend to no purpose, beyond that of weakening our attachment to that branch of the Church wherein God, of His Wisdom, has been pleased to place us. On the contrary, to us, who are so desirous, partly from ignorance, partly from pride, of confining our love and our admiration within the bounds of our own island, it can hardly fail to be advantageous to VIRGIN AND PRIORESS. A.D. 159;. S. CATHERINE DE RICCI. 365 look abroad, and to see what God was doing in other lands, and among another Communion. The three Saints, with the Hves of whom I propose to conclude this book, were of different countries, of different stations in life, but are now all inhabitants of abetter country, that is, an Heavenly. From the time of Innocent III., when the See of Rome attained her height of power, her in- fluence had gradually, and at first, almost im- perceptibly, dechned. The long schism between Urbanists and Clementines was a deadly blow ; the Council of Basle, though defeated in its endeavours, tended to weaken the power of the Papacy; but more than all, the attempts of the successors of S. Peter to establish a temporal, injured the tenure of their spiritual dominion. Intriguing with Venice, Ferrara, and Mantua, Julius II. shewed his earthly weakness instead of his spiritual strength ; the league of Cambray proved abundance of political skill, and, alas ! little of the wisdom of the children of Hght ; spiritual arms were employed to enforce temporal obedience ; appeals to " the Future Council" became more and more common ; the Council of Pisa, with short-lived authority, suspended Julius ; he prepared to defend himself by summoning an oecumenical synod at Rome. But death surprised him when he had celebrated but six sessions ; and the Cardinal JuHan de Medici, elected Pontiff under the name of Leo X. proved, unhappily, as averse from all real 2 I 2 366 i^ivES OF VIRGIN sa4nts. reform as his predecessor. In the meantime, eccle- siastical discipline went to ruin ; Ahbeys existed but as commendams ; courtiers revelled in the riches that had been left for the service of God : cathe- drals, for a century together, never beheld their Bishop ; ecclesiasticks heaped up to themselves Bishoprick on Bishoprick, Abbey on Abbey ; and the College of Cardinals were more especially guilty in this matter. Twelve sees were sometimes held by one man ; the flocks were exposed to the wolf of false doctrine ; and Grand Vicars but ill supplied the place of a real Pastor. The cry waxed loud and long for reform ; but, unhappily, it was disregarded till it was too late. Wrapt up in the political disputes of Italy, Leo had no eyes for the gathering storm. The hea- vens grew darker and darker ; on all sides came warnings of an impending convulsion ; till, at length, the famous Bull of Indulgences gave the signal for the outburst. Luther, at Erfurdt, began with reason, and ended in blasphemy ; conferences and bulls, colloquies and disputations, were of no avail; Carolstadt, and Zwingle, and Melancthon spread the schism; till by de- grees, the greater part of Germany, Denmark, Prussia, Sweden, and Norway, had thrown off the yoke of the Church, and plunged wildly into all kind of ex- cesses. Schism divided against itself. Luther and Zwingle railed against each other as more detestable than Rome, as more Anti-christian than Antichrist. S. CATHERINE DE RICCI, mi here were rigid Lutherans and lax Lutherans^ wingUans and Carlostadtians, (Ecolampadians and aterimists, Bucerians and Calvinists, Sacramentaries ad Ubiquitaries, Indifferents and Servetines ; joined 1 nothing but in hatred to the Church, they ersecuted each other, as occasion offered* Heresy and apostacy to become less unfrequent. i Lucy was born at Ximam, of Pagan parents ; but i sent for education to the house of her sister in Sinoa, | who had married the king's goldsmith. Joaquim, I — for such was the artificer's name, — was a Christian, % and earnestly desirous that both his wife and his I sister-in-law should forsake dumb idols, and turn to ^ the worship of the Living God. To this end, he ) laboured and prayed, and his supplications came up | to Heaven with acceptance. A devil took possession of his wife : a possession at that time, and in that place, of very frequent occurrence, and made the means of the conversion of many. For just as the early Fathers appealed, in arguing with their heathen opponents, to the power of their exorcists, so, in Cochin China, the power of casting out fiends was, and was by the heathen allowed to be, the common property of every believer. The tales related of the empire which these possessed over the Powers of Darkness are astonishing : women, as well as men, were gifted with them ; and Baptism was one of the most effectual means of expelling those unclean tenants. So it was in the case of the wife of Joaquim : with spiritual illumination, she also received freedom from the attacks of her ghostly enemy. Lucy beheld and wondered at this power in the God Whom the Christians worshipped ; and finally she also applied LUCY. 393 for Holy Baptism. Father Dominic Fuente, then at Sinoa, after the customary trial and instruction, granted her request ; and thus, at the age of thirteen years, she became a Lamb in the Flock of Christ. From that time forth, her whole heart was set on obtaining the Glory of Martyrdom. When the per- secution, as it shortly afterwards did, broke out with fresh vigour, she had thoughts of presenting herself before the Mandarins appointed for such cases, at Sinoa ; but, remembering that she might thus injure the business, and perhaps endanger the life, of Joaquim, she determined to leave the metropolis, and to go to Cacham, a three days' journey, where she might present herself before the judge, without a fear that others would suffer for her sake. Such voluntary offers were discouraged in the Early Church. S. Peter of Alexandria, himself a Martyr, thus writes in his Canonical Epistle, pub- lished in the persecution of Diocletian : — As to those who self-confidently approach the conflict, instead of avoiding it with prudence, exposing them- selves to the storm, or rather exciting it against their brethren, they are not to be avoided as excommuni- cate," — (he means, of course, if they come off with life;) — "because they have fought well for the Name of Christ, although they considered not sufficiently the words, ' Lead us not into temptation.' " He then instances the example of our Lord Himself, Who did not deliver Himself to His persecutors. 394 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. but waited till they came to take Him ; and exposes the fault of tempting the judge to commit sin. But afterwards, the judgment of the Church became more favourable to such cases. Those who presented themselves before the Mussulman King at Cordova, in the middle of the ninth century, courting Martyr- dom by the profession of their faith, and their publick opposition to Mahometanism, are, as we have already related, honoured as Martyrs, although it is expressly said that no miracles were wrought by their remains. The case also of the Five Franciscan Friars, who laid down their lives in Africa, is also in point. The fact seems to be, that no universal rule can be laid down in the matter ; if it be true that no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, it may also be true that there is sometimes an inward call, intelligible to, and unmistakeable by, the party con- cerned : and it may be well thought, that, wherever Martyrdom has actually followed, there the Martyr met it in the way of God's Will. For it seems hard to believe that the Holy Ghost would assist with such marvellous and supernatural constancy those, who, but for their own self-will, would not have needed this miraculous aid. On entering Cacham, the Christian maiden beheld a concourse of people, and, on inquiring the reason, was informed that twelve prisoners were about to suffer for observing the law of the Portuguese. Grieving that she had not arrived in time to share LUCY. 395 their condemnation and their triumph, she followed to the spot appointed for the combat — -T use the old chronicler's expression — of these Knights- Maintainers of the Faith. Of these, two were scarcely past childhood : Raphael being sixteen, and Stephen fourteen years of age. The usual death was by a stroke of the Catana, or Japanese broad- sword ; but, as this was considered a noble weapon, and not to be disgraced by shedding the blood of those that had no right to use it, women and children were pierced by lances, or slain by elephants. These are trained to execute their office in three ways : by trampling on the victim, by piercing him with their tusks, or flinging them up in the air, according as the Naire, or elephant-driver, shall give directions. The procession of death was made in this case, as in others, with great pomp. The mandarins and soldiers appointed to superintend the execution accompanied it ; proclamation of the crime for which the prisoners were to die was made by the sound of the drum; the eight Confessors of Christ, appointed to fall by the catana, went first, the executioner of each walking by his side ; the four who were condemned to the elephants came in the rear ; and the vanguard was formed by the elephants themselves, to the number of twelve, a naire on the neck of each. The Confessors were clad in garments of the richest silk, presented to them by the piety of their Christian friends, who were unwilling that 396 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Heavenly Nuptials should be welcomed with less joy or celebrated with less magnificence than those of earth. Among all the vast crowd of actors and spectators, the i>lartyrs had the only countenances of joy. Raphael, indeed, was observed to look sad; and Stephen, on inquiring the cause, found it to be the ignominy of a death suffered by the stroke of an elephant's trunk, as compared with that inflicted by the blow of a catana. ''Why," said he, smiling, " the disgrace is the other way. A catana may be purchased for five dollars : an elephant is worth an hundred. But," he added, more seriously, " con- sider this ; the more disgraceful our death, the nearer resemblance does it bear to that of Him, into Whose image we desire to be transformed." And with that thought, his last sorrow departed from the heart of Raphael. Lucy had been acquainted both with him and his companions in the court of Sinoa ; and now, both to shew her reverence for the Martyrs, and, if possible, to share their lot, she approached him, and kneeling on the ground, would fain have kissed his feet. » '' My elder sister," he replied — such is the title of courtesy that the natives use, — "go in peace; you will soon see us in Glory." But the soldiers obliged her to leave the spot, though they did her no other harm. The Mandarin, with cruel kindness, had set his heart on preserving the lives of Raphael and Stephen ; LUCY. 397 and to that intent resolved that the other prisoners should be first executed, in order that the terror of their death might induce the two survivors to repent of their constancy. The sufferers^ were arrayed in three rows, four in each ; and, at the given signal, the heads of the eight who composed the two front lines were struck from their bodies, and their souls were, doubtless, received into Paradise. The elephants were then commanded to walk in front of the remain- ing four, who, kneeling down, made the sign of the Cross, and stretched out their arms as if to welcome the ferocious beasts. Cayo, a native of Tonquin, who on being first arrested, had given some signs of alarm, was (as happened in a similar case with respect to SS. Perpetua, Felicitas, and their companions,) the first to triumph ; the signal being given, the elephant set his foot on him and crushed him ; and then, at the order of the Naire, took up the bloody corpse and flung it before the youthful Christians . Joanna' s turn came next. She was a native of Cacham, and had been converted to Christianity by some who themselves, in the persecution, fell away, though after- wards true penitents. She continued to fan herself with her left hand, (the day being hot,) while she made the sign of the Cross with the right, till the elephant struck her dead with his tusks. The mandarin's pity was changed into fury : he gave the sign ; and while one elephant crushed Raphael, another passed its tusks five times through the body of Stephen. 2 N 398 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. This victory was gained by the Martyrs on the 30th day of January, 1665. When the crowd had dispersed, Lucy approached the bodies of the Martyrs and shedding over them tears — but not of sorrow — shewed them every token of love and respect. A Japanese lady, by name Isabel Martins, was present, and hearing her story, com- forted Lucy with the thought, that as God seemed to have chosen her for the Crown of Martyrdom, He would not allow her to be deprived of it, though in His Wisdom He might see fit to procrastinate the honour. Encouraged by these words, Lucy, after the interment of the Conquerors, went to Faifo, and under the pretence of asking alms, obtained admit- tance to the Fathers in their prison. After confes- sing to Father Dominic Fuente, she informed him of her design ; and far from discouraging it, he exhorted her to persevere, for that God had assuredly chosen her for the extension of His Kingdom, and the con- fusion of unbelievers and lukewarm Christians. If God shall thus honour me," said Lucy, is there anything that I can leave your Reverence as a re- membrance V " In that case, my daughter," said the Father, " you shall send me the shawl you now wear." A Franciscan, by name Bernardo de ^esu, was present ; and while the future Martyr was talking with the Priest, he without her knowledge cuf off a small portion of her hair, which, after the manner of the maidens of Cochin China, reached below her LUCY. 399 knees. After her passion, it is said, by the same Friar, to have produced supernatural cures. At this time news was brought to Faifo, that four Christian prisoners from the Province of Quang Nghia were about to be brought by sea into the town. To these Lucy joined herself, hoping by their means to obtain that which she so ardently sought ; and with them she proceeded to Cacham. There was no audience on the. day of their arrival, the fifth of February, and the Feast of S. Agatha and of the Martyrs of Japan; but on the morrow, not a less appropriate day, as being the anniversary of the Passion of S. Dorothea, the four prisoners were brought before the mandarin, and Lucy accompanied them. On her way, she met a Christian widow, named Marina, bound thither on the same errand with herself; and the two went forward the more joyfully that each had a companion and a friend. For some time the whole party were kept waiting at the doors of the Court ; when the order was given for the entrance of the prisoners from Quang Nghia, Lucy and her companion, not without some difficulty, ob- tained leave to follow them; and when the four champions of Christ had refused to trample on the Crucifix, Lucy stepped forward, and spoke in precisely the following words: "My lords, I am the daughter of Peter Ke, whom the King ordered to be beheaded in the Court of Sinoa, on the ground of his being a Christian. I desired to die with him ; but the man- 400 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. darins refused to pollute their catenas with my blood. I come now with this companion into the Court, to offer ourselves to the elephants, which will be the means of our seeing God." The marvellous parallel between this story and that of SS. Flora and Mary is well worth notice. Without further delay, the mandarins gave ca- pital sentence ; and at nine o'clock, in the same morning, the procession of death was formed. The four men went first, each bearing on their neck the yoke to which malefactors in that country are condemned ; and still, as they went, the crier made proclamation, — " These are to die for observing the Law of the Portuguese : thus shall it be done to him that shall follow their example." Thomas Tin, a Catechist of great zeal, and now in the seventy- fourth year of his age, gave the crier a dollar and a half, on condition that he would alter the style of the proclamation. He accordingly did so ; and now it ran thus : — These are to die for observing the Law of the Lord of Heaven and Earth." As they proceeded, the prisoners of Quang Nghia spoke to the crowd, or sang hymns. Lucy and Marina, with feminine modesty, were silent; but their steps were not less forward, and their faces not less cheerful, than those of their companions. Arrived at the spot, Thomas Tin called his son apart, and recommended to him some poor, to whom LUCY. 401 he wished that alms should be given. Lucy calling to one of the women that stood by, and giving her shawl into her hands, requested her to carry it to the Father Dominic Fuente. When the catana had sent the first four prisoners to Glory, the mandarin, enraged to find his pre- parations despised by women, and eager to revenge himself by choosing for them the most painful death, gave orders to the naires, that the elephants should throw them into the air. Kneeling down, as they saw the approach of the ferocious beasts, to them the triumphal chariots of victory, they signed themselves with the Cross ; Lucy gave the most apparent signs of joy, and seemed scarcely able to contain herself, in anticipation of her victory. Marina was thrown into the air, and expired on faUing, as she was advanced in years. Once, and again, did the elephant wreathe his proboscis around the Virgin Martyr, and fling her towards the sky ; and still she was not only alive, but in possession of her senses. The third time, as if indignant to be bafiled, the beast put out all his strength, — and Lucy obtained the Martyr's Crown, for which she had longed, and prayed, and resisted unto blood. And now, with her namesake, who, thirteen hundred years before her, had entered into rest, she dwells with that True Light, from Whom they both were called, and Whom they both followed in His Life and in His Passion. Bitjiana anlr ©emetna. VIRGINS AND MARTYRS.* A.D. 363 TT7E are accustomed to imagine, that, as soon as Constantine had given peace to the Church, it was free from Pagan violence, and Imperial persecution. We look on the reign of Julian the Apostate, as a time when much was attempted by the force of ridicule, and the annoyance of political disabilities ; not as a period when the princes of this world shed the blood of the Martyrs. And yet the fact is, that a very severe persecution was carried on under this miserable Emperor ; in opposition, it is true, to his principles, but quite in accordance with his passions. * This memoir should have been inserted at p. 120, between the Life of S. Pherbutha and that of S. Eustochium. SS. BIBIANA AND DEMETRIA. 403 He began his reign, indeed, with a determination not to persecute. "The common sense of man," so he argued, " will revolt, if it has hut fair play, at the absurdities of Christianity. It is the part of a good emperor to give it that fair play, by imposing some slight restrictions on the professors of the New Creed : — restrictions, which shall rather brand it as insane, than punish it as impious." He forbade Chris- tians, therefore, to teach or to learn the writings of the Greek bards and philosophers. " Those who despise Grecian worship," said he, " are unable to compre- hend Grecian literature." He treated Catholicks and hereticks as on an equal footing; gave liberty of conscience to all ; and recalled to their countries every one who had been banished from religious motives. He endeavoured, though most unsuccess- fully, to engraft on Hellenism, (so he called idolatry,) certain features of the Church : — its alms, its purity, and (strange to say) its monasteries. The greatest success of the Tempter was obtained among his legions ; for it has always been the case that more apostacies have been occasioned by the hope of gain, than by the fear of loss. Julian himself persecuted but little till towards the close of his life. On his journey from Constan- tinople to Antioch, where he went to prepare for his celebrated expedition against the Persians, in Galatia and Cappadocia, but more particularly in the cities of Ancyra and Csesarea, he sent several Martyrs to a 404 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. glorious reward. At Antioch, while he sojourned there, and through the whole of Syria, many glorified God. But his prsefects and governors were more eager than Julian in this service of the Devil ; and the Martyrs of Palestine were more especially illustrious. At Ascalon and Gaza, such horrible cruelty was practised on the consecrated virgins, that not even to magnify their constancy, dare we to relate it. But we are now called to Rome. Julian, in his last expedition to the East, had made Apronianus governor of that city. While on his way to take possession of his office, he lost, in a sudden and unusual manner, the sight of an eye. As the physicians were unable to assign any natural cause for the disease, they attributed it to magic. The governor therefore declared open war against all magicians ; and, in their number, he, of course, included Christians. For since the fact of their miracles could not be gainsaid, in no other way could the natural inference be avoided. And it must have been no small additional trial to the suiferers, that they were punished, not strictly as believers in their Lord, but as evil-doers, and traffickers with evil spirits. A violent local persecution, therefore, raged at Rome ; and its most illustrious Martyrs were SS. John and Paul. Of them we know little, but that they were officers : but there must have been SS. BIBIANA AND DEMETRIA. 405 something of singular constancy in their confession, because their names have been held in more than usual honour by the Church. Flavian, a Roman knight, and his wife Dafrosa, had long been known as true disciples of the Crucified. The knight held an office of some in- fluence and emolument in Rome : of this, on account of his Faith, he was deprived, and summoned before the tribunal of Apronianus. He refused to sacrifice, and was condemned to be branded in the face with a red-hot iron, and then banished to Aquae Taurinse, now known by the name of Aqua Pendente. The punishment was so barbarously inflicted, that, a few days after his arrival in the city of his exile, he departed to the Lord. His widow, Dafrosa, was confined to her house ; and there she employed herself in preparing her two daughters, Bibiana and Demetria, for the fiery trial that, it seemed probable, was speedily to try them. It would make a beauti- ful picture, these exhortations from a Martyr to Martyrs : the mingled expression of joy and sorrow in the countenance of the Christian widow, — of hope and resignation in those of the Christian maidens. In this case, the lambs of Christ's flock were to have the longest and the sorest trial, in order that greater strength might be made perfect in more exceeding weakness. In a few days, it was announced to Dafrosa that she must prepare for death. Her rank, and perhaps 406 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. the influence of her friends, or, possibly, her known firmness, exempted her from torture. She bade farewell to her daughters, surrendered herself to the centurion with his guard, was carried out of the city, and beheaded. And thus, being taken away from the evil to come, she entered into the joy of her Lord. The crime for which Flavian had suffered being Sacrilege, his goods were confiscated to the privy purse. The house was plundered of all it contained ; nothing was left to the two sisters ; and they were ordered to confine themselves within the walls that they had once called home. Here they subsisted on the charity of their friends ; and in fasting, some- times voluntary, oftener compelled, and in earnest prayer, they passed five months. And these maidens, be it remembered, were not, as they of whom we have previously written, brought up in almost daily expectation of having to witness by their deaths to the Name of Christ. For more than forty years previously to their birth, the government had been Christian ; and there then seemed little likeh- hood that Paganism would ever again prevail. Apronianus, while he took care that escape from the place of their confinement should be impossible, was not unwilling that poverty and misery, and, above all, the sight of each other's sufferings, should induce the sisters to renounce their faith, and to petition for the restoration of some portion of their SS. BIBIANA AND DEMETRIA. 407 father's property. But in this he was disappointed. They indeed suffered much ; hut they knew Who had suffered more for them : and as they were ordained to follow Him in His Passion, so also were they privileged to imitate Him in a protracted Lent. At length, the patience of the Governor was exhausted, and he gave orders that the two sisters should be thrown into prison. And here they suffered, day by day, from want of food, and of all necessaries. Demetria more especially, the younger and the weaker of the two, pined away daily before her sister's eyes ; and it was plain to all that her earthly tabernacle was about to be loosed. But this was contrary to the intention of Apronianus ; and when he heard that the frames of both the maidens were well nigh worn out with fasting and rigorous treatment, he ordered them to appear at his tribunal, nothing doubting but that the vigour of the mind would be enfeebled by the sufferings of the body. And they came before the judgment seat. Both were strong in faith, though their trembling limbs and unsteady steps shewed the weakness of their mortal frames. . "You have learnt," said Apronianus, '^some little portion of the vengeance of our Gods. And judge, if hfe can be made so painful by their indignation, with what horrors their fury can surround death. 408 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. Demetria, you are the younger and the more open to reason, — speak boldly : Do you believe in the immortal Gods whom we worship ?" Demetria seemed, like a generous athlete, to sum- mon all her energy for one last effort. " I believe," she said, advancing to the lowest step of the tribunal, *^in Our Lord Jesus Christ, — that He died for us, that He ascended into Heaven, that He sitteth at the Right Hand of the Father, that He shall come again at the end of the world to judge all men according to their works." — And after saying these words, she sank down in the very presence of her judge. They thought that she was fainting ; and the soldiers that surrounded the tribunal endeavoured, in no gentle sort, to raise her. Bibiana also strove to recall her to herself by words of love and actions of tenderness. But Demetria was beyond the reach alike of brutal violence, or sisterly caress ; it soon appeared that the words the Confessor had spoken were the last she was to utter, until she should join in the New Song of the hundred and forty and four thousand followers of the Lamb. Bibiana would fain have performed the last offices that sister can render to sister ; but the voice of the magistrate soon recalled her to herself. "Away with the corpse," he said, ''it matters not where ; only the dogs shall not be deprived of their expected banquet. And now to you, Bibiana.— You make it your boast to court suffering, and to fly from plea- SS. BIBIANA AND DEMETRIA. 409 sure : — and you think we shall indulge your caprice hy ordering you at once to the torture. Fool ! We have learnt a better lesson from our Lord Augustus. Pleasure shall be forced on you whether you will it or not ; ours you must and shall be, and that without the credit of a brave resistance. This shall be your part, Ruffina — and he addressed a woman of notoriously evil character that stood by : — " you had promised to bring two Christians to their senses; but Charon has been beforehand with you in claiming one." " Your will, Praefect, shall be obeyed," answered Ruffina. " Come, lady ; — ^it is useless to shrink from me, — for I am your gaoler ; but such a gaoler as you shall have little reason to complain of." "We cannot follow S. Bibiana in the hour of her trial, for her faithful resistance was known to God alone. We cannot therefore relate how Ruffina afflicted her victim ; for persuasions failing, she soon had recourse to ill-treatment and blows. These sufferings will be recorded at the Last Day ; but of the glorious Passion of the maiden Holy Church even now can testify. Apronianus heard, and was full of indignation. He sat on his tribunal, and bade the torturers attend, and commanded that a pillar should be erected in the midst of the court. Bibiana was summoned ; and she came as gladly as a consul to his inaugural procession, or a general to his triumph. 2 o 410 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. " We have trifled long enough, Bibiana/' said the Prsefect ; " and now, by Hercules, you shall know that we can act. Lictor, let her be fastened to the pillar, and scourged either till she repent or till she expire." We have already mentioned the plumbatce, by which so many of Christ's Confessors were tortured in the place of judgment. They were whips, into the cord of which at intervals of about an inch pieces of lead were inserted. Two executioners advanced and did their office mercilessly. But no sound of pain, — far less word of recantation, — was to be heard ; and doubtless the dying Martyr consoled herself with the remembrance of Him Who could also say, — "The ploughers ploughed upon My back : and made long their furrows." Those agonies were momentary ; the exceeding weight of glory which they purchased, eternal. The remains of the Martyr were exposed for two days ; but they were precious in the Lord's eyes, and He preserved them unharmed. A Priest named John buried them in the night, and when Julian was re- moved from troubling the Church, a chapel was built over the tomb. And in a.d. 465, a glorious church was erected there at the expense of a lady named Olympias, and under the direction of Pope S. Simplicius. Of this Holy Virgin, the last that, probably, suf- fered in Rome, we may speak, as S. Ambrose with SS. BIBIANA AND DEMETRIA. 411 reference to another Passion. She, in whose slight frame was hardly room for the reception of torture^ had power to overcome its infliction. Girls of the same age cannot bear the hard looks of their parents, and weep for the prick of a needle, as if it were a wound. She was fearless in the bloody hands of the executioners ; she was motionless among the clanking chains. She scarcely knew what death meant, and yet she was prepared for it; scarcely of age to be punished, and yet ripe for victory. All wept ; — she shed no tear. The bystanders marvelled at her prodigality of life : that she who had hardly entered on it, should give it up as if she had done with it. She obtained this : — that one should be believed in testifying of God who would not (from the legal in- capacity of her age) have as yet been believed in witnessing about man ; because that which is above nature is from the Author of Nature. '^y* 'vp^ ^'jy* vv* 'vo^ CONCLUSION. T^HUS we have, by the blessing of God, finished the series which we proposed to write ; and have commemorated some of the most illustrious among the Virgin Saints whom Holy Church loves to honour. We seem to have been wandering among the chapels of some fair old cathedral ; lingering, it may be, longer in one than in another, but worshipping in all ; and finding in each some thought of peculiar sweetness, some feature of especial loveliness. Much there was that was common to all : the solemn splen- dour of the Earlier Church, the tempered and hal- lowed light, the modulated strain of the distant chant, the deep, deep repose, the calmness which is not of earth. And now we have come forth from those solemn shrines, and are again about to mix with the people, and to take our share in the occupations of the world. Not surely with discontented hearts ; as if those of CONCLUSION. 413 whom we have been speaking lived in the glorious times, and we were reserved for the colder and less faithful ages of the Church. That were to turn salutary contemplation into morbid reflection. What- ever we have lost, we may bless God that so much remains : — and may trust that, little by little, we shall regain much that now seems to have perished. In the meantime we are holding, — unless by our own faults, — very true and real communion with those Blessed Spirits of whom we have been writing. If any of them, more especially of those who have come last in our series, cast, while they lived in the flesh, an evil eye on the Church wherein we have been baptized, we may well trust that now, in that Place where no prejudices can intervene, and no ignorance darken, the case is not so. There they know even as also they are known. They know all the difficulties wherewith our Church has to con- tend ; opposition from without, unbelief from within ; advantages neglected by our fathers, and now lost for ever ; ground deserted in the two last centuries, now hardly to be regained; an encroaching state, and an increasing population ; an insubordinate laity, and a divided Priesthood. They know also, and they rejoice to know, that in spite of difficulties and discouragements, contentions and unkindness, pro- gress has been made, and is making ; and it is more than possible, that those Saints who, while they dwelt on earth, were unjust, in their thoughts and 414 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. words, to our Holy Mother, may now feel towards her a double portion of love, in acquittal of former dislike. But the more real inquiry remains ; what effect, namely, these lives have had on ourselves. For there can be no Communion with those whom, in a nearer or more distant manner, we are not imitating. How can two walk together, except they be agreed ? And the victory over self which was obtained by some, like S. Agnes, at the block, — by some, like S. Adelaide, in the convent, — by some, like S. Elizabeth, on the throne, — by some, like S. Rosaly, in the caves of the earth, is now to be gained in a different manner, and by every-day trials. And herein we behold the oneness of the Church ; that, adapting herself to circumstances so varied, to feelings so opposite, to characters so dissimilar, she is nevertheless the same in all. And it follows as a consequence, that to relate the earthly tempta- tions and struggles of those of her children that have entered into rest cannot but be profitable for those who are still engaged in the same warfare, however different their position may seem to be. There is nothing unreal in the feeling, if one of the daughters of our own Holy Mother proposes to herself a S. Agatha, — a S. Clara, — a S. Jane Frances, — as a model of gentleness, and devotedness, and purity. The Grace that was mighty in them, enabling one to endure the equileus, another to carry on CONCLUSION. 415 valiant warfare against self in the cloister, another to leave relations and friends, that a new order of religion might he founded, that same Grace is mighty now, to work in a different manner, but to the same end. And God grant that England may see many such : such, if not in circumstances, yet in spirit ! It is not, — and His Name be therefore blessed! — as if among those for whom we have written, there were no spirit abroad to minister to His service, no desire to labour for His power, no readiness to walk in His narrow ways. But it is an age of much talking, and little doing ; of much scheming, and little prayer ; of much business, and little self-examination. Men may say, with plausibility if not with truth, that this is inevitable ; women cannot plead that excuse. Their place is, indeed, to struggle, — but only with spiritual enemies ; to be severe judges, — but only of self ; theirs is, more especially, the love that beareth all things, that thinketh no evil, that, if it be possible, as much as lieth in them, liveth peaceably ; that doth not behave itself unseemly, that seeketh not her own. We may not conclude without sorrow that our task should have been so imperfectly executed. Many a pleasant hour has been spent upon it ; the Acts of these Holy Virgins have been our theme for thought in the mountain walk, and in the city street, in the sunny ravine and the fire-lit room, in 416 LIVES OF VIRGIN SAINTS. foreign lands, and in our own dearer country. We have pursued their histories and marvelled at the grace that shone in them, in the ancient library of the foreign cathedral, while the distant chant rose and fell, or the bells rang out for the Te Deum or the Divine Mysteries. And we would commit it to His Blessing, Whom those now happy Virgins follow whithersoever He goeth, beseeching Him both for them that shall read, and for him who, much unworthily, has written, that He would make them to be numbered with His Saints, in Glory Everlasting. Amen. J. T. WALTERS, CAMBRIDGE.